CIEH Welcomes Conservative Commitment to Environment Bill

CIEH has welcomed the manifesto commitment by the Conservative Party to bring the Environment Bill back to parliament if elected.

At the beginning of the election campaign, CIEH called on all political parties to pledge to bring the Bill back if they should form a government.

The Party’s manifesto also made a number of pledges in essential policy areas championed by CIEH in its Manifesto for Environmental Health. These include maintaining the UK’s food and environment standards as part of any new trade deals and prioritising energy efficiency and environmentally friendly homes.

Anne Godfrey, CIEH Chief Executive, said:

“When the election campaign began, we were clear that we wanted all political parties to commit to bringing the Environment Bill back to parliament if they formed a government. We are delighted that the Conservative Party have now openly committed to doing so in their manifesto.

There are certainly improvements to be made to the Bill, such as ensuring the Office of Environmental Protection is truly independent and including legally-binding air quality targets in line with World Health Organisation guidelines. However, the Bill is a solid basis for progress on a number of areas and we believe it must return to parliament as soon as possible.

We were pleased to see the Conservative Party pledge to maintain our food and environmental standards in new trade deals. However, we want them to go further and outline plans to not just maintain, but to improve these standards.

Finally, the appreciation of the need to address widespread energy inefficiency in our housing sector is a welcome one and we await more detail on how the Party intends to take this forward.

We continue to call on all political parties to commit to supporting environmental health and the policies in our manifesto.”