Recommendation 3

HM Government Acknowledged

We are committed to cross-departmental action on targets. During the target development process, we are engaging government departments on how their policies will play a part in achieving targets. The duty to achieve targets rests with central government, but public authorities, including regulators, will have a role to play. Through their functions relating to waste collection, air quality and planning, they will have a major impact on whether we achieve our ambitions or not. We would expect future Environmental Improvement Plan reviews, when considering progress and further measures needed towards targets, to highlight if we can do more to enable public authorities to contribute to achieving targets. The requirement to meet long term targets, as with other aspects of the Bill’s targets framework, will form part of environmental law and will therefore fall within the Office for Environmental Protection’s remit. The OEP will have the power to bring legal proceedings if government breaches its environmental law duties, including its duty to achieve long- term targets. Furthermore, we will set out further detail shortly on actions other government departments and their partner organisations will take through the Greening Government Commitments, to reduce their impacts on the environment in the period 2021 to 2025, including specific actions for nature recovery.