Environmental Audit Committee rebukes Government for anti-nature rhetoric, confirming nature is not blocking housebuilding
The House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) yesterday published its Sixth Report of the 2024-2026 Session on Environmental Sustainability and Housing Growth, delivering a firm challenge to the Government’s repeated claims that environmental protections stand in the way of building new homes.
CIEEM welcomes the Committee’s robust dismissal of anti-nature narratives and its call for a planning and housing system that actively supports nature recovery.
As the professional body for ecologists and environmental managers – with nearly 10,000 members across the UK and Ireland – CIEEM strongly supports the Committee’s emphasis on evidence-based environmental decision-making, professional competency and better-resourced local planning authorities.
At the heart of the report is a clear warning to Ministers:
“The government must not veer down the path of viewing nature as an inconvenience or blocker to housebuilding. In most cases housing delivery is delayed or challenged due to unclear and conflicting policies, land banking and skills shortages. Using nature as a scapegoat means that the Government will be less effective at tackling some of the genuine challenges facing the planning system.”
This important intervention comes at a crucial moment. MPs voted on the Planning and Infrastructure Bill (PIB) last Thursday, and the Bill returns to the House of Lords for further scrutiny — part of the “ping-pong” stage – on Monday 24 November. Several measures in the Bill have raised concerns about the weakening of environmental safeguards and the lack of evidence that the Bill would actually accelerate housing delivery.
CIEEM extends our sincere thanks to Ben Kite, Chair of CIEEM’s Strategic Policy Panel, who gave evidence to the Committee on behalf of CIEEM and also organised the Committee’s visit to Nansledan in Cornwall to see how planning and nature can work together. Ben’s expertise ensured that the voices of practising ecologists and environmental managers were represented in this inquiry.
The EAC report echoes concerns that CIEEM and others have consistently raised:
- Nature is not a barrier to development. The Committee warns that the Government’s own rhetoric risks undermining public trust and ecological outcomes.
- Environmental protections are essential to resilient, liveable communities, not optional add-ons or paperwork obstacles.
- The Planning and Infrastructure Bill requires major strengthening if it is to support, rather than weaken, nature recovery.
- Skills shortages in ecology and planning threaten the delivery of both new housing and environmental obligations.
- Investment in “Planning Ecologists” – as referenced in CIEEM’s planning solutions briefing paper – would mean that ecologists better worked with the planning system.
- Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) risks not delivering on its ambitions without stronger monitoring and enforcement. Unnecessary new exemptions also threaten to undermine BNG.
- Better data, cross-government coordination and long-term planning frameworks are all urgently needed to align housing and nature successfully.
The Committee’s findings reinforce what the evidence shows:
When early ecological input is embedded into planning, then housing delivery becomes faster, more resilient and better for communities.
In relation to Environmental Delivery Plans (EDPs) and the Nature Restoration Fund (NRF) – which CIEEM has argued for and supported Peers on an amendment to restrict them to just diffuse impacts – the report says that it would be “unwise to impose a policy solution on a problem that has not been fully accounted for”, and that “[o]nly once a fully comprehensive impact assessment of the environmental aspect of the NRF has been completed can informed decisions about the efficacy of the NRF be made. The Government and Natural England must be clearer as to how approaches to the NRF will differ depending upon the environmental issue at hand. If this is not possible, then the NRF should only be applied to nutrient pollution, as we cannot be sure of the impact it will have on the environment otherwise.”
CIEEM urges the Government to heed the conclusions and recommendations of the report – particularly as the Planning and Infrastructure Bill enters its final Parliamentary stages. Weakening environmental protections will not speed up the building of high-quality homes. Instead, it will create legal uncertainty, public opposition and long-term environmental harm.
We look forward to continuing to work with Parliament, Government and other stakeholders to support a planning system that contributes meaningfully to both housebuilding and infrastructure development as well as the UK’s legally binding nature recovery commitments.
The Government has two months to respond formally to the Committee’s report, but we sincerely urge the Government to not wait but rather take this report into account for the final stages of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill.