Environment Act 2021

The Environment Act 2021 received Royal Assent on 9 November 2021. As it stands none of the relevant sections of the Act are currently in force but they are likely to be brought into effect later in 2022/2023 as the necessary secondary regulations are put in place.

Overview

The Act will set statutory targets in four key areas, these targets must be of at least 15 years in duration and be proposed by late 2022:

• air quality
• biodiversity
• water
• waste and resource managment

The Act also creates a new Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) with a wide-ranging brief, including supervising the discharge of environmental duties by the government and other public authorities. This includes powers to investigate alleged breaches of environmental law by public bodies, to issue its own non-binding rulings on alleged breaches and (in effect) to apply to enforce that ruling through the Courts by way of an 'Environmental Review'.

The Act implements the Govenrment's ambitions for improving the natural environment which were previously set out in the 25- Year Environment Plan. The Environment Bill required the government to publish an Environmental Improvement Plan (EIP) and the government has pledged to set interim targets for each five-year period and lay out steps it intends to take to improve the natural environment. The 25- Year Environment Plan will be adopted as the first EIP. The OEP is intended to hold the government to account for meeting these targets.

Legal Framework

The first part of the Act puts duties on the Government in relation to environmental governance. This includes requiring the Government to:

• put in place measures to allow the Government to set and meet long-term targets related to the natural environment and people’s enjoyment of the environment;
• set at least one long-term target each related to priority areas of air, water, biodiversity, resource efficiency and waste by October 2022;
• set and meet an air quality target for fine particulate matter;
• set and meet a target related to the abundance of species;
• put in place the processes for setting and amending long-term targets
• have an Environmental Improvement Plan containing steps it intends to take to improve the natural environment. The plan must be for at least 15 years. The 25- Year Environment Plan‘A Green Future: Our 25 Year Plan to Improve the Environment‘ published by the Government in 2018 can be treated as such a plan; and
• collect and publish data related to measuring progress for improving the natural environment and meeting targets.