40: Nature's Rights Bill with Baroness Natalie Bennett

So, uh, moving on in terms of further news, a couple of short news items for us, uh, we're going to cover today.

Um, we have a new prime minister, obviously.

Uh, so Andy Burnham has replaced Keir Starmer as Prime Minister, and along with that comes a, a reshuffle of the cabinet, so we've got some changes to Secretaries of State and to some junior ministers.

Uh, so Environment Secretary, uh, Emma Reynolds has, uh, moved out of that position and has been replaced, uh, by Angela Eagle.

Uh, Emma Reynolds has gone...

She came from the Treasury, uh, to Defra, and has gone back to the Treasury, so we can hope that she's taken some of that experience from Defra and is gonna apply some environmental thinking in Treasury, hopefully.

Uh, Angela Eagle comes in, um, as a very, very longstanding MP, um, has been around a lot of different, uh, departments and committees, has been in Defra as a junior minister before, so comes with a lot of experience.

Whether there's going to be anything profoundly radical for nature, we don't know.

Focus will probably be more on farming and, and water.

Um, but she has said nature recovery is going to be one of her priorities, so we will see.

Um, for Housing Secretary, uh, Steve Reed is out and Angela Rayner is back in.

Uh, people might remember that Angela Rayner was actually the Housing Secretary, uh, when, uh, Keir Starmer first came in and she had to step down for, for other reasons, but has been brought back in.

Um, very much her priority is going to be around housing and equalities, uh, council housing, that kind of thing.

So we'll have to see how we can line that up with, uh, good development and getting nature, uh, into communities and, and into developments.

Uh, and then the last one on secretaries of state is, uh, energy secretary.

So Ed Miliband has moved over to foreign secretary, which has left a space there, and we've got a fairly new MP in, um, Miata Fan Bhullar has moved in.

Um, she is quite progressive, though, in that she's been previously chief exec of the, um, New Economics Foundation, a very forward-thinking think tank.

So hopefully there's some, some great, uh, thinking coming there and, and some progressive, uh, work.

What we hope, though, is, uh, unlike, I suppose what...

Well, perhaps following on what Natalie said in the, in the interview, uh, that we don't just focus on climate change and energy, that we bring nature into that as well.

I think Ed was really good as energy secretary but had a very, um, laser focus on energy, carbon, climate, and nature got forgotten a little bit.

So hopefully we can bring that p- back in a little bit more.

On junior ministers, um, Matthew Ken- Pennycook remains as the housing minister but is now also attending cabinet, so he has a little bit more influence.

So we'll see how that goes.

He wasn't the most helpful with the Planning and Infrastructure Bill Act, as it now is.