The Environment Bill's policy statement on environmental principles: a golden opportunity for a principled framework for the sustainable management of UK waters

Abstract

The Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs recently ran a consultation inviting expert input to determine how United Kingdom (UK) policymakers would be guided by five internationally recognised environmental principles when making policy affecting the environment. The principles are listed in a draft of the Policy Statement on Environmental Principles, a ground-breaking novelty of the Environment Bill – which is currently passing through the House of Lords. This article comments on this promising development with a focus on its implications for the development and implementation of policies for the protection of the marine environment. It advances that, while there is a lot of promise in the Bill creating a legally binding duty on Ministers across Whitehall to have due regard to the Statement while developing high-level strategic policies around marine environmental protection, it seems to exclude local authorities who are in charge of developing Marine Plans within the existing UK marine planning framework. This omission is problematic as it fails to recognise the crucial role which these authorities play in the actual delivery of nationally-developed high-level marine environmental protection policies and consequently weakens Her Majesty’s Government’s status as a global leader in this space.

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