Chancellor takes another swipe at nature

In the ongoing rhetoric from the current Government, the Chancellor (press release, speech) has added to the Prime Minister’s previous comments that nature is delaying development.

Again the Government fails to provide the evidence for this statement, but also fundamentally misses the point that a healthy natural environment underpins a healthy society and functioning economy.

In a speech this week highlighting the Government’s ongoing drive for “growth”, the Chancellor said:

Having listened closely to calls from business groups like the Institute of Directors…
… and businesses across our economy about the need to speed up infrastructure delivery…
… including Mace, Skanska and Arup who are here today…
… and members of our British Infrastructure Taskforce like Lloyds, Blackrock and Phoenix…
… we have now set out plans to go even further.
Last week we confirmed our priorities for the Planning and Infrastructure Bill …
… to rapidly streamline the process for determining applications…
… to make the consultation process far less burdensome…
… and to fundamentally reform our approach to environmental regulation.
The problems in our economy…
… the lack of bold reform that we have seen over decades…
… can be summed up by a £100 million bat tunnel built for HS2…
… the type of decision that has made delivering major infrastructure in our country far too expensive and far too slow.
So we are reducing the environmental requirements placed on developers when they pay into the nature restoration fund that we have created…
…so they can focus on getting things built, and stop worrying about bats and newts.  

CIEEM is engaging with the Government both independently and in partnership on the win-win solutions to providing both infrastructure and nature recovery.