When agreeing to write this article, I had some concerns that, in the time between writing and publishing, as policy announcements came and went at vertiginous speed, my article might be obsolete when it came to be read.

I was going to write about the Environmental Law Foundation’s (ELF’s) serious concerns over the proposed Investment Zones, and how the related relaxation of planning rules and environmental protections would undermine the government’s commitment to improving nature. However, I hear that Michael Gove, now the levelling up, housing and communities secretary, doesn’t like the policy. So, that may have gone.

I was going to write about the consternation of ELF and others, including farmers, at the review and possible rowing back of the Environmental Land Management schemes (ELMs). The much-vaunted replacement of the Common Agricultural Policy, simply put, ELMs provide ‘public money for public goods’, encouraging nature-based farming practices. I have now received assurances from my local MP, Maria Caulfield, that ‘claims that the government is rowing back on commitments to our farming reforms or nature are wholly untrue’. I am not particularly reassured, but it does appear that ELMs are to stay, though details are not yet clear.

I was going to write about the reintroduction of fracking on the political agenda, but having caused a huge political storm, this has since been reversed in line with the Conservatives’ 2019 manifesto.

However, one bill that is currently making steady progress through the House of Commons, and does not seem to have yet been stifled, remains of very serious concern. The Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill was introduced to parliament on 22 September 2022 and is alarming to those in the environmental movement, lawyers and conservation charities alike. Both have been expressing their concern loudly. Indeed, the RSPB, the National Trust and the Wildlife Trusts have led a coalition of concern, mobilising their membership to do likewise, writing to their MPs about the proposed loss of wildlife and habitats legislation. It has been really good to see those charities use their power.

So, what does the bill do and why is the environmental community so concerned? If it becomes law, we will see the repeal of many of the foundation stones of environmental legislation in this country that have evolved over nearly 50 years of EU membership. Those working in the environmental law sector look askance at what is proposed and how it appears to fly in the face of everything that has been promised by this government.

If the bill becomes law, at the end of 2023, all EU-derived legislation would automatically cease to exist. Ministers could decide to delay the repeal, but the risk of so many laws disappearing before any proper scrutiny is very grave. The original figure of ‘over 2,400’ laws being wiped from our legislation books (as cited at para 16 of the bill’s explanatory notes) has recently been uplifted as researchers at the National Archives have identified another 1,400 laws.

As anyone working in the public interest environmental law field knows – and indeed those on the flip side of that, in big development companies and business, know – we have all worked with the protections of European environmental legislation as a constant for decades. The Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017 SI No 1012 set out a framework of protection for our most important nature sites. The Town and Country Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) Regulations 2017 SI No 571, though watered down over the years, require developers of large projects to carry out full environmental investigations and to produce a report, the non-technical summary, for the benefit of lay people, encouraging public participation in environmental decision-making. The Water Environment (Water Framework Directive) (England and Wales) Regulations 2017 SI No 407, with which we are all now familiar, given only 14 per cent of England’s rivers meet good ecological status, is the legislation that provides for the measurement of those important statistics.

These laws are just some of the building blocks of the UK’s environmental legislation that are threatened. Indeed, the bill threatens the very working of the government’s much-lauded Environment Act 2021. The new Act envisages that existing EU law will be in place, upon which the new Act will function, setting targets that will drive ecological recovery. Not only is this bill very alarming, but it is also a mess and completely undermines more recent legislation. To date there is no information on what will be put in place of all that disappearing law that protects our nature.

Just as the National Trust, the RSPB and the Wildlife Trusts are asking members to write to their local MPs and express their alarm at this bill, I urge Legal Action readers to do the same. The bill should be of concern to all lawyers, whatever the field in which they work: environmental legislation is ELF’s concern, but workers’ rights, maternity rights and so many other areas of social justice are at risk. We should all be concerned.

As alluded to above, by the time this article is published, the bill may have fallen by the wayside. The government’s own independent assessment has found the bill's impact assessment to be ‘not fit for purpose’. If the bill is curtailed, then that is a good result but leaves us in no doubt about this government’s intentions and commitment to the environment.