Animal Sentience Committee raises concerns over Labour's pay-to-trash plans

Committee set up after the passing of the 2022 Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act

The British parliament's new Animal Sentience Committee (ASC) has raised concerns that Labour's proposed Planning and Infrastructure (PI) Bill will affect animal welfare. Steve Reed, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, is obliged to reply to the committee's findings within three months.

The ASC was set up as a result of the passing of the 2022 Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act, which recognised in law for the first time that animals are sentient (ie that they have feelings and experience suffering). The Act was a result of campaigning and advocacy by animal rights organisations who were part of a global movement to push governments worldwide to recognise that non-human animals are sentient beings too. The Committee is tasked with writing reports on "whether ministers have fully considered any negative impact that a policy or piece of legislation may have on the welfare of sentient animals.”

Pay-to-destroy

As Protect the Wild has pointed out before, Labour’s PI Bill aims to allow corporate developers to pay to trash the British countryside. It will do away with existing checks and balances in the planning system and establish a legal framework allowing developers to destroy irreplaceable natural ecosystems.

The plan is for corporations to pay into a planned Nature Restoration Fund to ‘offset’ the environmental devastation caused by their projects. Crucially, they won’t have to undertake local restoration work in the habitats they have damaged. Instead they will simply be able to pay cash into the fund which will be spent on projects elsewhere. As we have explained before, this is being passed off as a push to build new housing but its impacts are pure capitalism, plain and simple.

Committee: Bill failed to mention animal welfare

Shockingly, but perhaps unsurprisingly, the Committee points out that the PI Bill "does not mention the welfare of sentient animals". They remind the Secretary of State that "it is incumbent on the government to pay all due regard to the ways a policy might impact animal welfare."

This omission of any mention of animal welfare is even more unsurprising when you bear in mind that the Chancellor, Labour's Rachel Reeves, touted this policy as a way for developers to 'cut red tape' and “stop worrying about the bats and the newts”.

The ASC went on to highlight that the PI Bill:

"appears to conceptualise ‘biodiversity’ or ‘the environment’ as a single entity, without recognising that these are populated by individual animals capable of experiencing positive and negative welfare states."

The letter goes on to explain that although developers under the current plans might pay into a Nature Restoration Fund to benefit ecosystems elsewhere, that wouldn't help the sentient beings whose habitats are destroyed and who might perish as a result. The ASC wrote:

"the current approach to overall net biodiversity and environmental restoration is predicated on restoring or improving future habitats without considering impacts on existing populations of sentient animals. For example, an EDP [Environmental Delivery Plans, which would be drawn up by Natural England under the new plans] may conclude that the destruction of an area of land inhabited by certain species (such as hares, voles, wrens, badgers, great crested newts) can go ahead if new habitats suitable for species of conservation concern are provided elsewhere. This should result in increased future numbers of some species and greater overall diversity. However, under this model the needs (and often lives) of existing animals are forfeited for the future benefits of other animals and ecosystems."

The report, refreshingly, refers to the animals being discussed as 'individuals. The Committee continued;

"These individuals may be killed directly (for example, by plant machinery), killed indirectly (if their burrows or food sources are destroyed) or displaced to highly uncertain futures. These severely negative welfare impacts apply whether the animals are of high conservation concern (like newts and bats) or relatively common (such as rabbits, voles, wrens and three-spined stickleback)."

Committee's recommendations

The Committee lays out a number of recommendations for how construction could go ahead while at the same time taking into account animal welfare. They suggested:

• Avoiding breeding seasons when doing construction work

• Placing developments away from established habitats or feeding grounds wherever possible

• Translocating certain species to a suitable alternative habitat

• A requirement to consider the welfare of wild animals through "thoughtful design" (ie designs that reduce animal deaths on the roads),

• Utilising designs that "avoid light pollution, reduce bird-strikes, and minimise cat predation and disturbance from dogs."

• Creating hedgerows, wildlife corridors and ‘swift bricks’ (hollow bricks for swifts to nest in. This particular measure has already been blocked by the government at an earlier stage of the process).

• Requirements to plant native regional flora, to support populations of wild animals

These are all positive suggestions but these recommendations - even if they were followed - aren't enough to stop the wholesale destruction of our nature and wildlife threatened by this Bill. The PI Bill could allow developers to build on protected areas like Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs). If that happens, then avoiding breeding seasons and moving certain species out of danger won't stop the destruction of these precious places. At best, these measures might save the lives of some animals, but these habitats will be gone for good.

The ASC also make recommendations to Natural England, the body which the government wants to oversee the Environmental Delivery Plans and the Nature Restoration Fund. They wrote:

"When EDPs are developed, Natural England should also consider the impacts of development on the welfare of all sentient animals directly and indirectly affected, regardless of their conservation status."

Non-binding

The Committee's recommendations are non-binding and extremely likely to be ignored anyway. Even if the government did make them requirements, they would more than likely not be implemented by corporate developers. Recent research conducted by the University of Sheffield and advocacy group Wild Justice found that companies were not meeting existing environmental obligations. A staggering 100% of bug boxes, 83% of hedgehog highways and 75% of bat and bird boxes were found to be absent from recently completed construction projects. Almost 40% of trees planted to 'offset' existing projects were either dead or missing.

That said, the fact that the Committee's report considers the fate of individual non-human animals is more than welcome. The government now has three months to respond. Let's not wait for them to answer though. Now is the time to organise against this Bill. If we are going to stop it, we are going to need a grassroots movement strong enough to force the government to pay attention.

Join the fight against the Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Protect the Wild has been gathering signatures on a petition calling on Secretary of State Steve Reed to scrap the PI Bill. It reads:

“The UK is already facing a biodiversity emergency. One in seven species is at risk of extinction, and 41% are in decline. Yet this Bill weakens local environmental protections and turns nature conservation into a pay-to-destroy scheme. Developers will be given a green light to bulldoze through fragile ecosystems for short-term gain, with no obligation to repair the damage where it occurs.”

We need less than 4000 signature to reach our 10,000 target. Please sign it here. More than that, resisting this bill will require the strength, unity and creativity of all of our movements. Now is the time to act for Britain's wildlife and precious ecosystems, before it's too late.

• Earlier this month we outlined five key reasons the Planning and Infrastructure bill will be disastrous for British wildlife - read our article here.

Images of badger in woodland and of hare via Vincent Van Zalinge/Unsplash