MPs call for policymakers to heed environmental principles by autumn

The Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) has called for rapid finalisation and implementation of the government’s Environmental Principles Policy Statement, which was presented to Parliament in draft in May.

The principles are intended to be binding on policymakers across all but exempted areas (principally defence and taxation) of central government. They state that when making policy, ministers need to consider:

• the integration principle;

• the prevention principle;

• the rectification at source principle;

• the polluter pays principle; and

• the precautionary principle.

The committee said it saw no reason for further delay; the principles have been four years in the making already, and the Environment Act 2021 requires policymakers to observe the principles. It told the government to “deliver on its ambition for the policy statement to be finalised and embedded across government policymaking, as Parliament intended, not later than the autumn of 2022”.

The EAC further called for a post implementation review in autumn 2023, and for ministers to heed the Office for Environmental Protection’s advice on the draft principles in full. “Specifically, EAC calls on the government to strengthen its implementation of the prevention principle, by advising policymakers to apply preventative measures ‘without delay and as soon as possible’ where environmental harm is already occurring.”