Views: 1
EU warns Britain’s war on newts could violate Brexit deal.
LONDON — Britain has it in for its bats and newts — and Brussels is alarmed.
A confidential EU report, seen by POLITICO, warned that U.K. plans to strip away nature protections in pursuit of economic growth could put the British government in breach of the Brexit trade deal.
The measures, part of the U.K’s new planning bill, are meant to make it easier for developers to build new homes, roads, railways or pylons — but could fall afoul of “non-regression” clauses signed by Boris Johnson when the then-prime minister took Britain out of the bloc, the report said.
“The revision of environmental planning rules to facilitate building new developments is potentially in breach of the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement,” the report said.
Under the terms negotiated between the U.K. and EU after Brexit, both sides agreed not to weaken environmental protections in any way that might give them a trade or economic advantage. Estimates published this week by the U.K. government suggest the reforms could benefit the British economy by £7.5 billion over the coming decade.
The report also raises an eyebrow at Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ habit of directly blaming bats and newts for blocking development — “a reference found in virtually every government interview and speech on the subject.”
It notes “months of government rhetoric against ‘red tape’”, stating that Reeves, Keir Starmer, and other senior ministers have “specifically targeted environmental regulations, downplaying their effectiveness, if not ridiculing them.”
“We are reducing the environmental requirements placed on developers,” Reeves said in a major speech in January. “So that they can focus on getting things built and stop worrying about the bats and the newts.”
The EU report was shared between the European Commission and EU member states last week. It made no recommendation about future steps for redress, noting the bill is still being discussed in parliamentary committees and may be subject to change.
Under the terms of the Brexit Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) either side can impose “rebalancing measures” or sanctions against the other if it believes environmental or social policies have been weakened in a way that would have “material impacts on trade or investment.”
The U.K. would be entitled to challenge the sanctions at tribunal and Brussels would have to prove that its claim was “based on reliable evidence and not merely on conjecture or remote possibility”, according to the text of the agreement.
The EU has previously shown a willingness to open legal battles under TCA — most notably in defense of EU fishing fleets’ right to catch sand-eels in U.K. waters following a blanket ban. Should the EU wish to challenge the planning policies, the mandatory first step would be to begin “consultations” with London to see if a solution could be worked out without resorting to legal action.
The European Commission declined to comment.
A draft of the planning bill was published in March by Deputy Prime Minister and Housing Secretary Angela Rayner. She hopes it will launch a construction boom and help meet Labour’s goal to build 1.5 million new homes, as well as release major infrastructure projects from long-winded planning procedures.
A spokesperson for the U.K. Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said: “We are clear that change is needed if we are to halt the decline in the state of our environment, but also deliver the homes and infrastructure we need. Through the Nature Restoration Fund, we will establish a new approach that will allow us to move beyond the current environmental status quo, securing meaningful, lasting improvements for nature.”
The proposed changes would scrap measures inherited from the EU that require builders to repair the damage they cause to nature in the vicinity of a project, for example by expanding newt habitats such as wetlands close to where they have been destroyed or damaged by a development.
The EU process will be replaced by a levy that funds the restoration of bogs and blooming meadows around the country — but not necessarily where a project has had its deleterious impact.
The British government says the changes will increase natural spaces overall in the U.K., but environmental watchdogs have warned the changes would amount to a weakening of protections.
“In our considered view, the bill would have the effect of reducing the level of environmental protection provided for by existing environmental law. As drafted, the provisions are a regression,” Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) chair Glenys Stacey wrote in a separate report, released last week.
The OEP said the government’s test for an overall improvement to nature contained several weaker requirements when it comes to the impact on legally protected conservation zones.
The proposed language introduced “considerably more subjectivity and uncertainty in decision-making,” said Stacey. The OEP also noted that the U.K. was reversing the legal process for permissions, which only allows environmental harms where there is an overriding public interest and no alternative. The planning bill seeks to remove those limitations.
The OEP suggested several amendments it said would balance the needs of nature against those of developers. NGOs have also roundly criticized the changes proposed under the law.
The EU report reflected many of the same concerns. It also noted a recent U.K. working paper which cited rules that stop developers flooding rivers and protected sites with nutrient pollution as an example of “burdensome, costly and uncertain” regulation.
In fact, the EU report huffed, they are “a feature of the EU-inherited Habitats Regulations.”
Source; POLITICO