Environment Secretary Andrea Leadsom has insisted that the UK's environmental goals in areas such as waste will not be "watered down" following the UK's decision to leave the EU.
Leadsom rejected suggestions from the Environmental Committee Audit committee chair Mary Creagh, that without pressure from the EU environmental issues may be "de-prioritised".
She commented: ''I do not see why there is any sense in which the goals of good environmental outcomes will be watered down in any way. We have very clear goals around issues such as air quality, waste.... Those commitments will be enhanced by our ability to take our place on a world stage.''
The Environment Secretary added that one of the Governments manifesto commitments was to ensure that they left the environment in a better state than they found it, and plans were in place for a 25 year environmental plan framework to be published in the upcoming months. According to Leadsom, leaving the EU would provide greater flexibility to enable this to happen.
During the meeting with the Audit Committee questions were also raised regarding the process by which the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) is managing Brexit. Leadsom explained DEFRA is in the process of working to bring all EU environmental legislation into UK law under the Great Repeal Bill. EU legislation on the environment makes up around 25% of EU law.
She added: ''When we bring this EU legislation into UK law that will include all of the current targets so we will have to take a specific, legislative action to change specific parts. We won’t be creating a vacuum or a void by nationalising it. At our leisure we will be able to repeal, amend, strengthen... For environmental groups I think the certainty of the Great Repeal Bill will be a great comfort to them. We think that about two thirds of that 25% of legislation that we are intending to bring into UK law will be able to roll forward with just some minor technical changes. Roughly a third won't. Each week I have one or two meetings with our team to discuss exactly where we are at.''
Although no details were given as to which legislation may be deemed problematic, there were indications that issues may be technical or relate to activities which are monitored elsewhere in the EU.
In relation to whether there was a need for the UK to develop a new environmental court that could replace the function of the European Court of Justice in dealing with environmental cases, Leadsom insisted: ''The UK courts will be perfectly able to deal with any issues of enforcement. We won’t need to replace European Courts.''
