This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Proposals to replace the EU’s strong environmental protections after Brexit “fall woefully short”, according to a highly critical report from a cross-party committee of MPs.

The environment secretary, Michael Gove, said in December that the UK’s environmental standards would be enhanced after Brexit. But the MPs’ report said the proposals “severely downgrade” the environmental principles that underpin current EU rules.

It said the new Office for Environmental Protection (OEP), proposed as a replacement for the EU’s enforcement mechanisms, lacks independence from Gove’s office and has limited powers. The report from the environmental audit committee also criticises planned exclusions from environmental rules, which one expert called “absurd”.

Most of the laws that protect the UK’s air and water from pollution and its nature from destruction come from the EU. These allow the government to be sued and fined if laws are broken – for example, ministers have lost three times in court over illegal levels of dirty air.

Mary Creagh, the chair of the EAC, said: “If we want to be a world leader in environmental protection, we need a world-leading body to protect it.

“The government promised to create a new body that would go beyond the standards set by the EU. The bill, so far, falls woefully short of this vision.

“The draft bill means that if we leave the EU, we will have weaker environmental principles, less monitoring and weaker enforcement, and no threat of fines to force government action.”

The MPs said: “Urgent action is needed to plug gaps in environmental protection post-Brexit.”

The report said the OEP must be independent and “free to criticise the government and hold it to account”. But evidence from the National Audit Office said the OEP’s independence was at risk because it would be funded by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and its chair would be appointed by the environment secretary.

“The environmental principles which guide and inform EU legislation and policy have been severely downgraded by the proposals in the bill,” the report said. “They are [also] subject to a number of exclusions and to the veto of the secretary of state.”

The exclusions include policies relating to taxation, the armed forces – which are large landowners – and “any other matter specified in regulations made by the secretary of state”. William Wilson, a barrister and environmental lawyer, told the EAC the exclusions were “absurd”.

Taxation is important in embedding the “polluter pays” principle across government and preventing environmental harm, said Emma Howard Boyd, the chair of the Environment Agency, in her evidence to the EAC.

The report also found the enforcement of cuts in carbon emissions to fight climate change “has been deliberately excluded from the scope of the OEP”, an omission Creagh called shocking.

Enforcement by the OEP is also limited to whether rules were followed, not whether environmental targets have actually been met, the MPs said, weakening the power currently held by the European commission.

The Guardian has requested a response from Defra. On Tuesday, Gove attended a speech to MPs given by Great Thunberg, the Swedish teenager whose solo school strike for climate change action has inspired a global movement.

Gove said: “Your voice – still, calm and clear – is like the voice of our conscience. When I listened to you, I felt great admiration, but also responsibility and guilt.

“I am of your parents’ generation, and I recognise that we haven’t done nearly enough to address climate change and the broader environmental crisis that we helped to create.”