Environment Bill — New Clause 1 — Environmental Principles: Public Authorities — 26 Jan 2021 at 17:30
The majority of MPs voted not to require public authorities to act in accordance with the following principles in relation to the environment: preventative action to avert damage; the precautionary principle; rectifying damage at source and "polluter pays".
The rejected principles would have applied when creating new laws.
MPs were considering the Environment Bill.[1][2]
The proposed new clause rejected in this vote was titled: Environmental Principles: Public Authorities and stated:
- (1) A public authority, must, when exercising their functions (including the making of policy and legislation), act in accordance with the environmental principles currently in effect.
- (2) The duty in subsection (1) does not apply to policy relating to Wales.
- (3) In this section, “legislation” means—
- (a) an Act of Parliament; and
- (b) subordinate legislation.’
The rejected new clause was accompanied by the following statement from its proposer:
- This new clause would require public authorities to act in accordance with environmental principles when exercising their functions.
Clause 16(5) of the Bill, as at the time of the vote[3] stated:
- In this Part “environmental principles” means the following principles—
- (a) the principle that environmental protection should be integrated into the making of policies,
- (b) the principle of preventative action to avert environmental damage,
- (c) the precautionary principle, so far as relating to the environment,
- (d) the principle that environmental damage should as a priority be rectified at source, and
- (e) the polluter pays principle.
The Bill[3] required a Secretary of State to make "a policy statement on environmental principles" "explaining how the environmental principles should be interpreted and proportionately applied by Ministers of the Crown when making policy".
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- [1] Parliament's webpage on the Environment Bill, Parliament.uk
- [2] Explanatory notes to the Environment Bill, 30 January 2020, Parliament.uk
- [3] Environment Bill as of 27 November 2020. Parliament.uk
Party Summary
Votes by party, red entries are votes against the majority for that party.
What is Tell? '+1 tell' means that in addition one member of that party was a teller for that division lobby.
What are Boths? An MP can vote both aye and no in the same division. The boths page explains this.
What is Turnout? This is measured against the total membership of the party at the time of the vote.
| Party | Majority (No) | Minority (Aye) | Both | Turnout |
| Alliance | 0 | 1 | 0 | 100.0% |
| Con | 358 (+2 tell) | 0 | 0 | 98.6% |
| DUP | 8 | 0 | 0 | 100.0% |
| Green | 0 | 1 | 0 | 100.0% |
| Independent | 0 | 4 | 0 | 100.0% |
| Lab | 0 | 198 (+1 tell) | 0 | 99.5% |
| LDem | 0 | 11 | 0 | 100.0% |
| PC | 0 | 3 | 0 | 100.0% |
| SDLP | 0 | 2 | 0 | 100.0% |
| SNP | 0 | 46 (+1 tell) | 0 | 100.0% |
| Total: | 366 | 266 | 0 | 99.1% |
Rebel Voters - sorted by constituency
MPs for which their vote in this division differed from the majority vote of their party. You can see all votes in this division, or every eligible MP who could have voted in this division
Sort by: Name | Constituency | Party | Vote
| Name | Constituency | Party | Vote | |
| no rebellions | ||||