DEFRA looks to outcome-based post Brexit green rules

FROM THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY CONFERENCE

Although a Remainer before the referendum, water minister Therese Coffey told a meeting hosted by Southern Water, Anglian Water and the Enterprise Forum at her party’s Birmingham conference this week that leaving the EU offered an opportunity for a more flexible environmental policy based out outcomes and local circumstances.

Commenting that Brussels’ policies had good intentions but had in some instances become over prescriptive, she said leaving the EU provided “a real opportunity to think about outcomes in the future”. Released from the confines of abiding by rules spanning 28 countries, we could for example come up with 100 catchment plans, each taking account of different water requirements and different water stresses. “We need to go a lot more local,” she signalled.