On 8th January I gave a speech at the Parliamentary event we held with The Wildlife Trusts, to highlight a major gap in the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill and to ask our parliamentarians for key additions to the Bill.  

Below is the text of my speech. 

We all share a vision for our counties and regions where people prosper and thrive:

• Where we have clean water and clean air
• Where green spaces are part of everyday life, not a privilege
• Where there are good homes and good jobs for current and future generations
• Where we are proud of our landscapes and welcome visitors to enjoy them
• Where the impacts of climate change are managed fairly, so they don’t undermine security or deepen inequality

That vision depends on nature. Not as a “nice to have”, but as essential, underpinning infrastructure - a set of critical assets that support our economy, our health, and our communities. Functioning ecosystems are fundamental to lasting prosperity, security and resilience.

Globally, over half of the world’s GDP - around $44 to $58 trillion - is moderately or highly dependent on nature. In the UK, the value of nature is estimated at over £1.8 trillion, yet continued environmental deterioration could result in a 12 per cent loss to national GDP - a shock on the scale of, or greater than, the financial crisis or the peak of the Covid pandemic.

This is not abstract economics. This is not a future problem. It is already happening and these impacts are already being felt locally.

Flooding risk is rising. Water quality is deteriorating. Farming yields are under pressure. Communities are losing access to green spaces that support physical and mental health. 

In Hampshire and the Solent, we are feeling this acutely. With ambitious growth strategies bumping up against environmental limits, we are at the forefront of this challenge – seen most obviously in the heavily polluted waters of the Solent coast and our struggling chalk streams. 

These are place-based impacts, and so the Devolution Bill is an ideal vehicle to address these challenges - and yet it currently does very little to ensure that the new strategic authorities it creates are required to respond to them.

That is the gap we are here to highlight.

At the Trust we recently worked with Arup to assess what a nature-positive economy could look like for the Hampshire and Solent region. The findings were clear. Nature underpins our major economic sectors - farming, maritime industries, tourism. They all depend on healthy natural systems.

• 94 per cent of stakeholders told us that nature is essential to long-term economic success.
• 90 per cent said nature restoration creates opportunities for skills and jobs.
• 89 per cent said nature should sit at the heart of the region’s future vision.

Arup’s work also showed that the risks of inaction are significant. Continued environmental degradation threatens supply chains, infrastructure resilience and productivity across all those sectors. 

In other words, growth strategies that ignore nature are not growth strategies at all.

This brings us directly to our asks for the Devolution Bill.

We welcome the Government’s acceptance of amendments to Clause 44 recognising the role of access to nature in improving health and wellbeing. That change matters, and it demonstrates that the Bill can be strengthened during parliamentary scrutiny. But this change is far from enough. 

The Bill creates powerful new strategic authorities and mayors, with influence over housing, transport, infrastructure and local growth plans. Yet, as drafted, it places no clear statutory duty on those bodies to contribute to the UK’s legally binding climate and nature targets alongside these. 

The Bill’s own impact assessment suggests its effect on natural capital could be negligible.

This is why we need vital further improvements made to the Bill. 

First, the Bill should include a new, comprehensive statutory duty requiring strategic authorities, mayors and local authorities to actively contribute to the achievement of climate and nature recovery targets.

Existing duties largely date from the mid-2000s. Climate duties were removed in 2011 and never replaced. A biodiversity duty that asks public bodies merely to “consider” nature does not reflect the scale or urgency of the crises we now face. This Bill is a timely and appropriate vehicle to update that framework.

This is not an ideological or environmentalists proposal. Local leaders are asking for it.

Hampshire County Council called for such a duty in its response to the devolution consultation. Eight councils across Suffolk and Norfolk wrote to Ministers asking for nature recovery and net zero to be at the heart of devolution.

The Local Government Association has been clear that councils need statutory duties, sufficient funding, and robust support to lead on climate action. And over twenty mayors and council leaders have written to Government asking for strengthened climate and nature duties alongside the necessary funds to deliver. 

Second, the Bill should require local growth plans to align with Local Nature Recovery Strategies. LNRSs already exist as blueprints for reconnecting habitats, supporting wildlife and strengthening ecosystem services such as flood mitigation and water quality. Growth plans that ignore them risk undermining their own economic objectives.

Third, the Bill should ensure that the new community right-to-buy explicitly covers nature-rich spaces on the face of the legislation, not just in guidance. Communities need legal certainty if they are to protect the green spaces that underpin health, wellbeing and local pride. Guidance alone will not provide that certainty.

Taken together, these are not radical changes. They are targeted, proportionate amendments that would ensure this Bill genuinely empowers local leaders and communities to build resilient, prosperous places.

In closing, this Bill will shape England’s governance for decades. It can either hard-wire climate resilience and nature recovery into devolved decision-making  - or leave communities to pick up the costs later.

Nature-positive, nature-powered devolution is not an add-on. It is the foundation of thriving, resilient regions.

We need to ensure this Bill delivers empowerment that is real, lasting, and fit for the future.

Find out more about our asks for the Bill here.