Part 1: Environmental Governance
The Draft Environment (Principles and Governance) Bill 2018 was published for parliamentary pre-legislative scrutiny on 19 December 2018, fulfilling requirements for publication of a draft Bill under section 16 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. Part 1 of this Act updates that Draft Bill in light of pre-legislative scrutiny reports by the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee and Environmental Audit Committee in the previous parliament, which were published on 30 April 2019 and 24 April 2019 respectively. The government of the day responded to these reports when it introduced its Environment Bill, which the current Act largely takes forward, in October 2019.
	Most of the UK’s environmental law and policy has derived from the EU, and EU structures and processes have provided for oversight and enforcement. The Act sets out the measures needed to ensure that there is no environmental governance gap now that the UK has left the EU. The Act will require the setting of long-term, legally binding and joined-up targets tailored to England, embed consideration of environmental principles in future policy making and establish the independent Office for Environmental Protection.
	The Act places a statutory requirement for the government to prepare and maintain an Environmental Improvement Plan (EIP), the first being the 25 Year Environment Plan published in January 2018, and creates a new statutory cycle of monitoring, planning and reporting to ensure continuing improvement to the environment. It also establishes a new framework for setting long-term, legally binding and joined-up targets (covering at least air quality, resource efficiency and waste reduction, water and biodiversity). As part of the framework for setting targets, the Act includes a specific duty to set a target for annual mean concentrations in ambient air of the air pollutant of greatest harm to human health: fine particulate matter (PM2.5). The Act also includes a specific duty to set a separate target to halt a decline in species abundance by 2030.
	The Act legislates for environmental principles to protect and enhance the environment by making environmental considerations central to the policy development process across government. The principles work together to legally oblige Ministers of the Crown to ensure nature and the environment are proactively considered in the policy-making process. The Statement on Environmental Principles will set out how the principles should be interpreted and applied by policy makers.
	The Act also creates a new public body – the Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) – as a domestic independent body that will be responsible for taking action in relation to serious breaches of environmental law. Through its scrutiny and advice functions, the OEP will monitor progress in improving the natural environment in accordance with the government’s domestic environmental improvement plans and targets. It will be able to provide government with written advice on any proposed changes to environmental law. Through its complaints and enforcement mechanisms, the OEP will take a proportionate approach to managing compliance issues relating to environmental law.
	Ministers will be required to make a statement to Parliament setting out the effect of new primary environmental legislation on existing levels of environmental protection provided for by environmental law. These statements will be published and open to scrutiny by Parliament, environmental stakeholders and the broader public as the proposed new primary environmental legislation passes through Parliament.
	The Act also includes a commitment to review the biggest developments in environmental legislation from around the world every other year and use the findings from that review when considering the UK’s own environmental plans.