The Environment Agency (EA) has said that the Government must legislate to ensure that environmental standards do not drop in future as a result of Brexit.

The proposals form part of the Agency’s response published yesterday to Defra’s recent consultation on environmental principles and governance after the UK leaves the European Union.

The Environment Agency has welcomed the government’s agreement in the EU (Withdrawal) Act 2018 that the environmental principles should be set out in primary legislation. It also supports the proposal for a new independent body accountable to Parliament which would have proportionate enforcement powers against Ministers of the Crown, including the ability to initiate legal proceedings.

“This will help ensure that the new body can hold the government to account when the UK leaves the EU2,” the response says.

It also agrees that the new body should not replace or duplicate the role of other bodies, including the Environment Agency.

The Agency is advocating the inclusion in the forthcoming Bill of a non-regression clause requiring the government to take steps to ensure that EU exit does not result in removal or diminution of standards.

The EA has also said that existing EU law requirements for the government to report information to the European Commission on the implementation of EU environmental law should be replaced with a requirement on the government to publish appropriate reports.

“If reporting obligations are lost this would affect the ability of the new body, and existing environmental bodies such as the Environment Agency, and non-governmental organisations and the public, to be able to properly scrutinise the implementation of environmental law and policy and give appropriate advice to the government.”, the response says.

The Agency is also supporting the suggestion that the new body could be asked to provide independent advice if the government is planning to change existing environmental law significantly on whether the environmental outcome would be enhanced, maintained or diminished.

“We think this would provide additional reassurance in relation to future changes to environmental legislation that may be proposed by the government after EU Exit, where there may be fears that present standards could be reduced.”

The response has also proposed that the new body should be able to scrutinise, advise and report on the delivery of key environmental policies, including the 25 Year Environment Plan (25 YEP).

According to the Agency, publication of the 25 YEP has “raised public expectations for future environmental protection and improvement” and one way of fulfilling these would be to place the 25 YEP on a statutory footing. The forthcoming Bill could set out a duty for the Secretary of State to publish, review and report on the 25 YEP on a regular basis. It could also place a duty on the new body to provide advice to the Secretary of State on the 25 YEP and make regular progress reports to Parliament, to which the Secretary of State is obliged to respond.

Defra is now analysing the responses to the consutation - click here to download the Environment Agency response