The UK government’s plans to relax rules on water pollution to allow more housing construction were defeated by the House of Lords in a major defeat for Rishi Sunak’s administration on Wednesday night.
The UK Prime Minister proposed removing “nutrient-neutrality rules” from the EU era, complaining that these were preventing the construction of 100,000 new homes within the next decade.
The government lost by 203 to 156 votes in the upper chamber. Three Conservative peers, including Lord Deben (an ex-cabinet member and former chairperson of the Climate Change Committee), voted against government along with various opposition peers.
Angela Rayner said that the upper house of parliament had “humiliatingly” rejected the “flawed” plan.
Michael Gove (levelling-up secretary) said that Sir Keir [Labour leader] was trying to stop the dream of home-ownership for thousands of young families and people through his political games.
Natural England, an agency of the government, has ordered more than 60 local authorities to restrict building in certain areas. The advice was based on an EU directive and intended to prevent pollution of rivers with substances such as phosphates or nitrates.
After complaints from the housing industry, Ministers sought to repeal these rules by amending the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill currently being debated in parliament. The government has promised to spend hundreds million pounds on mitigation methods such as planting trees, creating wetlands and giving grants to farmers to reduce runoff into rivers.
The plan was met with anger by environmental groups who warned that it would worsen the water pollution, despite the fact that the government insisted housebuilders were responsible for less than 1% of the nutrients entering rivers and lake.
Green Party peer Baroness Jenny Jones told the chamber that “we were told there would be no lowering environmental standards in post Brexit legislation, but there has manifestly been.” . . Even I would not have believed that a government could commit such an act as environmental vandalism.”
By voting against this amendment, peers ensured it could not be reintroduced into the House of Commons as part of the same bill since the legislation is nearing the end of its journey through the parliament.
Ministers may, however, decide to introduce new laws into the King’s Speech this autumn in order to revive the plan. A minister’s aide told reporters that the government would now be deciding on its next steps.
Labour had hinted before that it might support the government’s plans. On Tuesday, it announced that it would vote against the ministers’ plans.
The opposition said it had a plan that would allow developers to begin building homes without nutrient neutrality programs in place, and then force them to take measures to mitigate any environmental damage before the homes are occupied.
Sunak accused Starmer, who had previously pledged to be prodevelopment, of “flip-flopping”.
He said that it was typical of his principles-free and conviction-free leadership to flip-flop from being a builder into a blocker.
The RSPB wildlife charity, however, said that it was “delighted” to see all politicians in the House of Lords voting against the Government’s proposal to scrap nutrient-neutrality rules.