Thank you to you all for being here with us today to mark publication of our annual report on government’s progress in delivering the Environmental Improvement Plan.
You will all be aware that a revised EIP was published last month. That came too late to feed into our main report here today, which covers progress in the period from April 2024 to 2025.
We do present today an initial assessment of that revised EIP, and I will come to that shortly. It is important. Much is riding on that revised EIP.
But first, I want to focus on the picture presented in our report, the first that covers a substantial period overseen by the current government. A government very much focused on economic growth.
Nature has a role to play there, an important role. Let us be clear – the environment should not be viewed as a blocker to growth. That view is unhelpful and not well thought through. Instead, it is far more realistic and productive to focus on how nature enables, drives and protects economic growth.
Nature’s recovery is a pre-requisite of prosperity, health and well-being. Recent analyses (led by the Cabinet Office) of the chronic risks facing this country are sobering. They talk of accelerating climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution having cascading, compounding impacts, which will amplify threats to national and international security, the economy and communities.
It is in that context we provide this latest annual assessment of how government is working towards improving the natural environment, and so towards a more prosperous and more secure future.
We have previously called for government to speed up and scale up its efforts if it is to achieve its environmental ambitions and commitments. We must renew that call again now. We have seen more progress in this year than in the previous reporting period – but not the step change needed.
Our headline is disappointingly familiar. Government remains largely off track to meet its environmental targets and obligations. This includes biodiversity targets set under the Environment Act and the UK’s twin 30 by 30 commitments for protected areas and, additionally, for restoring degraded ecosystems.
Government has to now make a decision on whether it is going to meet those targets. What happens now matters.
That takes us nicely to the new EIP.
Our assessment of EIP25 is that it is an improvement on EIP23. It is a more coherent plan that presents government’s approach to improving the natural environment more clearly and transparently. The EIP25 provides a strategic framework as well as more detailed information on how key targets will be delivered.
In September 2024, we provided government with advice on how the EIP might be improved. We can see in the EIP25 that much of the advice we provided has been taken on board. And I would like to recognise here our ongoing constructive dialogue with Defra - focused on continual improvement, particularly around its own Annual Progress Report.
Delivering all that is planned would improve substantially the chances of government achieving its environmental ambitions.
In particular, we welcome EIP25’s greater focus on delivery, as well as actions being linked to targets and to those responsible for delivery; an improved approach to monitoring and evaluation, and governance measures around cross-government delivery. New interim targets are broadly welcome, albeit they are a bit of a mixed bag – ambition is increased in some areas and reduced in others.
As many of you will appreciate, the new plan could have been stronger still. While delivery plans are welcome, more detail is needed in some places. Nature friendly farming elements could have been stronger. Higher tier agri-evironment schemes, particularly Landscape Recovery, are highly effective and should be well resourced. The monitoring approach is better, but there are still gaps. The lack of a specific Chemical Strategy and a Waste and Resources Strategy is notable.
So, a good step forward, with room for further improvement. But I make no apology for once again repeating here a long-standing OEP message – what really matters now is getting on with and putting this new EIP into practice. Implementation. Delivery.
It is government’s plan – not Defra’s plan – to meet its environmental obligations and commitments. Let us not lose sight that these are meaningful legal obligations.
To be effective, to deliver that urgently needed step change, the new EIP must be implemented coherently alongside other initiatives, including the long-awaited Land Use Framework, a new Farming Roadmap, Food Strategy, Circular Economy Strategy and a UK Marine Strategy.
And yes, alongside significant planning and water sector reform.
There is now a real opportunity for all of these reforms to complement the revised EIP, to provide coherence from the strategic policy level through to local decision making.
It all comes down to effective delivery.
With our progress reports, we always seek to make recommendations that can assist the government in getting on track.This year we repeat the key recommendations that we made last year. Not out of laziness, I must stress – without that stepping up of pace and scale needed in this past year, they remain pertinent. They are still the biggest levers government has to pull.
Government must:
- Get nature-friendly farming right
- Maximise the contribution of protected sites for nature
- Speed up action in the marine environment
- Set out clear mechanisms for reconciling competing demands for land and sea
- Develop a circular economy framework
- And finally, make sure that with its regulators, it regulates wisely, and well.
Many of you know that this will be my last time presenting this annual report as Chair of the OEP, as my term ends shortly and I am stepping back to spend more time with my family – that’s not a code for anything else, by the way.
The selection and recruitment of a new chair is underway, with an interim chair to be appointed, in the interim. I am very proud of the organisation that the OEP has become, and all it has achieved, from such humble beginnings. I would like to thank all of my OEP colleagues for their hard work, dedication, expertise, and for being jolly good eggs to work with. I wish you and the wider organisation every success.
I would also like to thank all of you. Our engagement with you all has been so important. There is such a will to do more for nature, across so many organisations and individuals, and we have benefited enormously from your willingness to work with us and alongside us, thank you.
I leave at the end of the month, but I will be keeping an eye on things and cheering you all on. Thank you. Thank you for listening.
The report can be found here: Progress in improving the natural environment in England 2024/2025 | Office for Environmental Protection
