The Treasury vs the Regulators: Natural England and the Environment Agency in the spotlight

I meant to write this blog earlier in the week, but got distracted by a family construction project that almost certainly would not get passed the Building Safety Regulator (picture below)*.

On 17 March, the Treasury published an “Action Plan” designed to change the our approach to regulation to “ensure regulators and regulation support growth”

The “Action Plan” is much broader than just the built environment sector, but does devote entire sections to both the Environment Agency and Natural England, so it is clear that they (and many other relevant regulators) have been pushed firmly into the spotlight.

The overall goal of the Action Plan is to reduce the cost and adminsitrative burden of regulation on businesses by removing duplication and cutting unnecessary “red-tape”, in a bid to promote economic growth - however, given the Chancellor's announcements this weekend, it is very hard not to also view these proposals through the lense of public sector cost cutting. Not least given the following pledge to look at consolidation:

“We will simplify regulatory structures. We want a regulatory system which is easier to navigate for businesses, and reduces duplication. In many cases, this will require legislative change. We are therefore taking active steps to remove or consolidate regulators, where it makes sense to do so. As we approach the 2025 Spending Review, Departments will be considering where there may be benefits from merging, consolidating or rationalising the regulators they sponsor.”

So, what does the Action Plan actually say about ‘Environmental and planning regulation’?

Let's get into the detail.

The Action Plan promises to:

• Ease environmental permit and licence requirements for low-risk activities within the planning process - at least in relation to NSIPs
• Place statutory consultees on a “sustainable funding” model and launching a suite of new initiatives to support priority sectors: including the Environment Agency’s priority tracked service to allow developers to work with a dedicated team on their permits and track progress.
• Consult “before Easter” on reforms to permitting legislation that will enable regulators to be more agile in making sensible decisions on which low-risk activities should be exempt from environmental permits. 
• Consult in June on a package of reforms to modernise permitting for industry and energy sectors.
• Appoint a single lead regulator for major projects. A lead environmental regulator will be appointed for all major projects in which multiple regulators have an interest, to make decisions on their behalf - an approach which will be tested on some high-profile schemes (such as Heathrow expansion) before being rolled out more widely.
• Require environmental regulators to start upgrading their digital systems for planning advice, including exploring establishing a single planning portal for all environmental agencies; and
• Reform the role of statutory consultees in the planning system, to:
  • make it clear that statutory consultees should be focused on growth;
  • Consult in the spring on the impact of removing some statutory consultees and reducing the permissions they need to be consulted on;
  • make clear that local planning authorities should only consult statutory consultees where really necessary; 
  • set up a new performance framework to monitor performance, including an MHCLG-HMT ministerially-led review point; and
  • signal that government intends to allow statutory consultees to recover costs for advice.

Some of this may sound a little familiar…. Possibly because MHCLG has announced it before. In fact, some of it is already in a Written Ministerial Statement.

The Treasury has promised to set new performance criteria for all regulators, requiring them to:

• "Publish clear, time-bound targets for processing authorisations; and their performance against these targets.
• Stress-test these targets with industry to ensure these are properly calibrated for the sector; and
• Ask their stakeholders how they can improve their service and draw up action plans to do so, with an update to Government by June."

It has also committed DEFRA to responding rapidly to the Corey Review by:

• Reviewing and rewriting existing environmental compliance guidance so that it is fit for purpose.
• Publishing new strategic policy statements for all regulators to mandate the of use constrained discretion to deliver desired outcomes within the law.
• Allowing trusted nature conservation and environmental partners and other trusted organisations greater autonomy through memoranda of understanding and wider deployment of class licenses; and
• Exploring the launch of a Nature Market Accelerator to bring much needed coherence to nature markets and accelerate investment.

Perhaps most interestingly the Action Plan contains a series of “pledges” which regulators are meant to deliver over the next twelve months. 

The pledges for the Environment Agency (EA) and Natural England (NE) are set out in full below:

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, for my family's experiments with modern methods of construction and high-rise buildings (otherwise known as Duplo Towers), the Building Safety Regulator does not make an appearance in the Action Plan. 

It is probably safe to say, however, that the Labour Government's enthusiasm for major public sector reforms appears to be continuing…. and the Treasury spotlight is now firmly trained on the regulators….

Any major reforms will, however, need careful consideration given that Natural England is almost entirely responsible for delivering the Government's plans for strategic nature recovery in the Planning & Infrastructure Bill…

Oh, and we all have a couple more consultations to look forward to! So, there is that.

*not enough staircases for one thing…