The House of Commons Public Accounts Committee is warning that time is running out for the Government toprogress its ambition to improve the natural environment "within a generation" and that it must “move on from aspirational words” and start “taking the hard decisions.”
The House of Commons Public Accounts Committee is warning that time is running out for the Government to progress its ambition to improve the natural environment "within a generation" and that it must “move on from aspirational words” and start “taking the hard decisions.”
The Government first set its ambition to improve the natural environment "within a generation" in 2011, but nine years on the Public Accounts Committee says "progress is disappointing" and that the complexity of environmental issues "is not a good enough excuse" for serious delays in tackling "critical environmental issues like air quality, water quality and wildlife loss" where the pace has been "painfully slow".
The comments are among wide-ranging criticisms the Public Accounts Committee is levelling at the Government in its newly-published Fortieth Report - Achieving government’s long-term environmental goals.
The Committee said that the 25 Year Environment Plan, published seven years later in 2018, claimed again to set out how Government will improve the environment "within a generation" - but it does not contain a coherent set of long-term objectives or interim milestones. In addition, the responsible Department, Defra, does not have "the clout to lead the rest of government … hold other departments to account or manage trade-offs between policy areas".
The MPs on the Committee say the Government still does not understand the total costs of delivering its environmental goals, funding has been piecemeal and environmental impacts are still not being taken into account in spending decisions.
“Not clear how much of an additional total £1 billion promised to Defra in the 2020 Spending Review is genuinely new money”
In addition, the Committee says it is not clear how much of an additional total £1 billion promised to Defra in the 2020 Spending Review is genuinely new money - it is known to include previously announced increases in flood defence spending spread over the next five years.
Ahead of the last Spending Review – in the year the UK was due to host the upcoming COP26 climate change conference - departments struggled to provide the Treasury with requested information about how their proposals would contribute towards the UK's statutory carbon targets or the 25 Year Plan.
Meg Hillier MP, Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, said:
"These ‘generations’ will soon be coming of age with no sign of the critical improvements to air and water quality Government has promised them, much less a serious plan to halt environmental destruction.
Our national environmental response is left to one Department, and months from hosting an international conference on climate change, the government struggles to determine the environmental impact of its own latest spending round. Government must move on from aspirational words and start taking the hard decisions across a wide range of policy areas required to deliver real results – time is running out."
Click here to download the Public Accounts Committee Fortieth Report - Achieving government’s long-term environmental goals
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