What Do the Welsh and Scottish Election Manifestos Say About The Environment?

Below is a run-down of the environmental commitments stated in major parties’ manifestos. This is intended as a summary, links are provided to full manifestos that will offer greater detail. There are also several other minor parties not covered here.

Wales

Welsh Labour

• Create a National Forest for Wales, for the benefits of equality and mental health as well as the environment. Also strengthen protections for ancient woodlands.
• Create the first new national park in Wales in almost 65 years to combat the climate emergency and create new jobs. The park will cover the Clwydian Range and Dee Valley.
• Expand the scheme supporting community groups to create or significantly enhance green spaces accessible to and valued by local communities, including: 2,000 pollinator habitat sites; 1,000 community food growing sites; 200 community orchards cultivating native fruit; 100 ‘Tiny Forests’; 50 habitat creation schemes at rail stations and transport interchanges; and 50 sensory gardens for therapeutic purposes.
• Create a new system of farm support that will maximise the protective power of nature through farming, requiring food production in Wales takes place within environmental limits.
• Create jobs across Wales with green energy, environmental protections and tourism.
• Establish a targeted scheme to support restoration of seagrass and saltmarsh habitats along Wales’ coastline.
• Invest for the long term in the green and modern infrastructure Wales needs to thrive.
• Launch a new 10-year Wales Infrastructure Investment Plan for a zero-carbon economy.
• Develop a new major routes fund to improve the attractiveness and biodiversity of areas alongside major transport routes into Wales.
• Work towards a new target of 45% of journeys by sustainable modes by 2040, setting more stretching goals where possible.
• Abolish the use of the most littered single-use plastics, protecting the seas and countryside.
• Build in the right way using materials with low levels of embodied carbon, such as timber.
• Deliver nature-based flood management in all major river catchments to expand wetland and woodland habitats at the same time as relieving pressure on hard defences.
• Legislate to strengthen the requirements for the use of sustainable drainage systems that provide wildlife habitat.

Welsh Labour Manifesto

Cymraeg

Plaid Cymru

• Introduce a Nature Act with statutory targets to restore biodiversity by 2050 and establishes an independent environmental governance body for Wales.
• Review the entire budget to ensure the resource allocated to decarbonising and restoring nature matches the urgent need and is reflective of the government’s ambition.
• Introduce a long-term National Nature Plan which will set out a national natural capital balance sheet, with proposed capital gains and maintenance with spending and an independent auditing process.
• Invest in protecting and developing an extensive network of wildlife sites, with a particular focus on improving existing protected sites.
• Farmers would be encouraged to transition to more sustainable and environmentally friendly forms of land use and a Welsh Agriculture Bill would put greater emphasis on decarbonisation, sustainable food production, and enhanced biodiversity.
• Introduce a Clean Air Act for Wales in first year in Government.
• Commit to fund Natural Resources Wales and National Parks in a way that reflects the key role they have to play in tackling the climate and biodiversity crisis.
• Make reforesting Wales a national goal and develop and implement an action plan to deliver a minimum of 20% tree cover in all urban areas. Also commit to planting a 100,000 hectares of mixed woodland per decade in Wales, resulting in a total increase of 300,000 hectares by 2050. Use a ‘right tree in right place’ approach for forest restoration.
• Improve and extend Wales’ marine protected areas and investigate the creation of a National Park of the Sea in Cardigan Bay and the Celtic Sea.
• Set a Wales-wide mission to generate 100% of electricity and reach zero emissions by 2035.
• In planning new homes, ban the use of fossil fuel energy from 2022 and require all to be highly energy efficient by 2023.
• Support the development of tidal lagoons and ensure all renewable energy developments minimise any potential harm to biodiversity by developing improved locational guidance to developers in both marine and terrestrial environments.
• Commit to providing good quality and safe green space within a five-minute walk of all Welsh households.
• Flood mitigation measures would be increased to £500m by the end of the five year Senedd term.
• Commit to introducing a Wales Fisheries Bill, working with industry stakeholders to develop fisheries and aquaculture policy, backed by a strategy that has sustainability, investment and industry engagement at its core.

Plaid Cymru Manifesto

Cymraeg

Welsh Conservatives

• Establish a £20 million Wales Wildlife Fund to support conservation efforts across Wales.
• Scrap Natural Resources Wales and create two separate organisations focused on the commercial and the current regulatory function.
• Create the Independent Office for Environmental Protection and Climate Change for Wales, to hold the Welsh Government and other public bodies to account in tackling climate change and protecting our environment.
• Introduce an Agricultural Bill for Wales setting out how farmers and land managers will be supported with public money for public goods.
• Plant at least eight million trees a year, to sequester half a million tonnes of CO2 a year, whilst also reducing flood risks.
• Place a legal duty on the Welsh Government to maintain fish sustainability for every stock.
• Introduce a Clean Air Act to cut pollution and reduce the incidence of respiratory disease.
• Ban single-use plastics for non-medical use such as plastic wet wipes, straws, stirrers, disposable cups and cotton buds, as well as creating a drinks deposit return scheme.
• Making Wales Net Zero by 2050, with investment in clean energy solutions to reduce carbon emissions, and creating 15,000 new green jobs.
• Work with the UK Government to inject £2 billion into Wales, including an M4 relief road, upgrades to the A55 and A40, and green charging points.

Welsh Conservatives Manifesto

Cymraeg

Liberal Democrats

• Take action to protect our natural environment and biodiversity, including action on flooding, reforestation, wildlife conservation, marine conservation and loss of open, public green space.
• Agree Nature and Marine Recovery Plans, to clean up our
  environment and our waters, protect species, and ensure that our
  environment can thrive.
• Look to establish a new independent body that will hold the Welsh Government to account and ensure compliance with environmental policy and practice.
• Support plans for a National Forest for Wales.
• Make every town in Wales a Tree Town, with every council
  preparing a long term Tree and Woodland Strategy to deliver and
  sustain a minimum of 20% tree cover in urban areas and 30% tree
  cover for all new developments.
• Update and improve tree protection legislation as part of plans
  for a new Welsh Planning Act.
• Introduce legally binding nature recovery targets with regular
  milestones, backed up by monitoring and reporting.
• Ensure that the Basic Payments Scheme is replaced by a system
  based on public money for public goods, including: sustainable
  land management for biodiversity gain and for improvements in
  water quality and pollution levels.
• Increase resources for Natural Resource Wales to enable
  investigation and prosecution of incidents of pollution, supporting
  targeted interventions based on the polluter pays principle.
• An investment of £1bn per year to fight the climate emergency, create new green jobs, and cut household energy bills.
• Pass a Green Homes Act to create a new green standard for Welsh homes and cut average household bills by up to £500 per year.
• Tackle pollution and clean up the air we breathe with a Clean Air Act in the first 100 days.
• 15-minute communities become the norm rather than the exception.
• Commitment to spend more than the current 1% of the Welsh Government budget on decarbonisation. Citizens’ assemblies must be put in place in every community in Wales to plan for and deliver community-based green plans that are resourced and cross-cutting.

Welsh Liberal Democrats Manifesto 

Cymraeg

UKIP Wales

Scottish Labour

• Scottish Labour supports an ambitious Environment Act that includes legally binding targets for nature’s recovery.
• Invest in energy efficiency measures for buildings across Scotland.
• A Just Transition focused on developing the skills needed in a green recovery and protecting jobs and communities impacted by the transition to net zero.
• Develop a coherent biodiversity action plan for post-2020 for land, air and sea.
• Support a plan for ocean recovery with at least one tenth of Scotland’s Seas fully protected, and a further 20% highly protected, from destructive and extractive activities by 2030.
• Increase peatland restoration to 20,000 hectares each year, alongside measures to end commercial peat extraction and support the comprehensive licensing of grouse moors as soon as possible.
• Maintain current levels of agricultural funding until 2024 and then put in place a new scheme that gives farmers and crofters certainty.
• State that 50% of all woodland expansion should be with native species and at least 10% delivered through natural regeneration.
• Support the implementation of the Deer Working Group recommendations.
• Give interest-free government loans to help more low and middle income households buy electric cars over the next two years and accelerate the roll-out of electric charging points.
• Increase active travel spending to 10% of the overall transport budget, giving priority to encouraging and enabling people to get out of their cars, onto bikes, and walk more.
• Decarbonise Scotland’s railways within 15 years, focusing on electrification, and seek to make train journeys between Scotland’s cities faster than going by car.
• Support measures that deliver a circular economy, including introducing a Circular Economy Bill and obligations on the producers of waste and annual material flow accounts.

Scottish Labour Manifesto 

Scottish Greens

• Create a Nature Network for Scotland, connecting habitats across the country to ensure they are robust, coherent and proofed against climate change. This will be given statutory weight in national planning documents and government policy.
• Introduce legally binding nature recovery targets.
• Invest at least £895m over the next five years in restoring nature whilst investing in rural communities, creating over 6,000 green jobs.
• Deliver a new Agriculture Bill that enshrines the principles of climate and nature recovery into a new agricultural support scheme.
• Increase forested area to 40%, with at least 60% of this to be native woodland.
• Ban peat extraction and sale for horticultural use and ban the burning of
  peatlands and license any other proposed burning.
• Source at least 70% of the onshore wind supply chain domestically.
• Ensure at least 30% of Scottish seas are protected, and a third of this area will be highly protected.
• Invest in marine renewables and give financial support for innovation and to support early stage tidal turbines.
• Call on the UK government to stop issuing new licences for oil and gas exploration and development and end subsidies and tax breaks for the industry.
• Ban the importation of shale and fracked gas for processing in Scotland, and ensure the Scottish government can deliver the transition to net-zero.
• Introduce Low Emission Zones with immediate effect in all areas that breach air quality limits.
• Introduce a Circular Economy Bill with targets to reduce our overall consumption of raw materials, our carbon footprint, and a duty to produce Resource Reduction Plans.
• Deliver a fully resourced a Wildlife Crime Investigation Unit to investigate wildlife persecution and enforce protection.
• Introduce a Human Rights (Scotland) Act to enshrine fundamental rights, including the right to a healthy and safe environment.

Scottish Greens Manifesto

Scottish Liberal Democrats

• Propose a Nature Recovery Law to set legal targets across government for nature recovery, and clean air, soils and rivers.
• Ensure access to green, open spaces, wildlife corridors and woodland is available to every community.
• Use the recent conclusions of the expert working groups on agriculture support as a starting point in driving the transition to a more sustainable food production system.
• License the practice of muirburn in the uplands.
• Implement the recommendations of the Deer Management Review to control numbers and restore biodiverse landscapes.
• Expand woodland using at least 50 per cent native species, increasing Scotland’s forest cover by an additional 36 million trees every year.
• New national parks, and new woodlands close to where people live.
• Start a Marine Recovery Plan to restore more of our seas, encourage marine  biodiversity and boost ecotourism businesses alongside traditional maritime industries.
• Designate new Marine Protected Areas where this is backed by scientific evidence.
• Move one million homes to zero emission heating by 2030.
• Invest in low carbon heat networks.
• Double the programmes to end fuel poverty.
• Invest in new skills for a just transition from fossil fuel industry.
• Introduce a Circular Economy Law including targets that reduce emissions.
• Aim to fully incorporate the Right to a Healthy and Safe Environment into Scots Law.

Scottish Liberal Democrats Manifesto