UK Environment Bill Summary

11 October 2019

Following the Queen’s Speech, the Environment Bill has been introduced into Parliament and published yesterday, 15 October.  Here is the link to the Bill documents.  

The next stage will be Second Reading in the House of Commons, which is the debate on the main principles of the Bill.  Second reading is expected week commending the 21st October. 

The Bill demonstrates our commitment to tackle climate change. It legally obliges policy-makers to have due regard to the environmental principles when choosing policy options. These principles are: 

  1. Environmental protections should be integrated into policy-making
  2. The preventative action to avert environment damage
  3. the precautionary principle
  4. environmental damage should as a priority be rectified at source
  5. the polluter pays

The Bill contains various elements of relevance to BEAMA members, and expected by BEAMA following the publication of the Resource and Waste Strategy. These include: 

  • New legally binding targets will now be set for 4 priority areas, two of which will impact on BEAMA members: 
  1.  Air quality
  2. Waste and resource efficiency
  3. Water
  4. Nature
  • The bill creates a new independent Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) will be established to scrutinise environmental policy and law, investigate complaints and take enforcement action against public authorities, if necessary, to uphold our environmental standards. THE OEP will replace the role of the European Commission, taking a proportionate approach to managing compliance issues relating to environment law.  Failures by public authorities to implement environmental law will no longer be considered through European enforcement processes and instead the OEP will engage with public authorities to reach a solution.  Legal proceeding will only be taken as a last resort or in truly urgent cases. In the media the principle of moving powers to the OEP are supported but concern is raised that this will reduce enforcement and the legal accountability. The office’s powers will cover all climate change legislation (including carbon budgets) and hold the government to account on its commitment to reach net zero emissions by 2050. The OEP will therefore work closely with The Committee on Climate Change 
  • Air quality provisions - this will look to set legally binding targets to reduce particulate air pollution (PM2.5) (it is not clear how this goes beyond what the UK are legally obliged to do under EU regulations).  The exit from the EU will effectively remove the chance of fines if the UK exceeds air pollution limits, which is has often exceeded.  There is no mention of indoor air quality and the focus seems to be on particulate matter issues for out-door air quality and enabling the recall of vehicles not meeting emission standards. The Bill aims to update existing regulations including the Environment Act 1995 and Clean Air Act 1993, and simplify and strengthen the local air quality management framework (LAQM).
  • Resources and waste management - the Bill makes moves to progress to a more circular economy.  For BEAMA members:  
  1. New government powers are established to set resource-efficiency standards for products.  BEAMA have been working closely on EU standards for products resource efficiency and so are keen to understand more what this means in terms of the risk of divergent actions for product manufacturers in the UK and EU.

What are these ‘powers’?

  1. Powers in the Bill introduce new extended producer responsibility schemes which will lead to reform of existing producer responsibility arrangements and introduce new schemes in the future e.g. plastic packaging. These powers provide for modulated fees that incentivise producers to design their products with re-use and recycling in mind so that those who make their products easier to recycle will pay less.  Modulated fees were a key element of the new EU Waste Framework Directive, and effectively a lot of what is set out in this Bill is an outcome of this. BEAMA are very supportive of modulated fees as a mechanism. The key will be tracking how the changes to Governance around producer responsibility in the UK affects existing WEEE schemes – a consultation is expected on this latter in the year. 
  2. The Bill contains powers to introduce clear labelling, which will enable consumers to identify products that are more durable, reparable and recyclable and will inform them on how to dispose of products. 
  • Chemicals-related provisions with enabling powers to amend the Articles REACH as it applies in UK law and the REACH Enforcement Regulations.  These provisions are clause 122 and Schedule 20 in the Bill.  The relevant paragraphs in the Explanatory Notes are 967-969 and 1612-1624, and in the Delegated Powers Memorandum are 511-535.

 

The REACH Regulation draws a distinction between the Articles and Annexes of the Regulation.  As REACH is carried into UK law the Annexes can be amended by the Secretary of State through Statutory Instrument but the Articles cannot generally be amended.  However, this risks freezing the UK REACH Regulation in its current form. The power in the Bill will allow the Secretary of State to take further steps where necessary to ensure a smooth transition to a UK chemicals regime following the UK’s exit from the EU.  It will also make it possible to keep the legislation up to date and respond to emerging needs or ambitions for the effective management of chemicals.

 

For example, the Secretary of State may want to amend the detailed operation of the regulatory processes such as evaluation, authorisation and restriction to ensure they remain efficient and effective and respond to the experience of applying them in a UK-only context.

 

A number of safeguards are included in relation to the exercise of this power.

 

BEAMA will continue to track the development of this Bill.  With the regulatory powers set in place for number of key changes (resource efficiency standards for products, producer responsibility schemes and association governance,  plastic packaging,  air quality targets,  REACH and the role of the new OEP) we therefore anticipate a number of key consultations and robust proposals to stem from this Bill.

BEAMA will pursue specific action with regards to bringing in-door air quality into the scope of the regulatory measures for air quality stemming from this bill.  We will also open discussions with DEFRA on what is meant by setting regulatory powers for government in setting resource efficiency measures for products, and how would these differ from those being developed at EU level.  For this and labelling we will be seeking as much alignment as possible with the EU measures under eco design, and the development of EU product passports.

EFRA Committee launched an inquiry on the Bill on the 17th, BEAMA will work with links to relevant APPGs and other cross trade association groups to respond to this inquiry as an opportunity to get our key points across.  Any comments on the Inquiry and the Bill overall please email [email protected]

More on the Bill will be reviewed by members as the BEAMA meeting on the 16th January 2020.

 

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