MICHAEL GOVE’S plans to set up an environmental watchdog after Britain leaves the European Union were greeted with scepticism by Labour and campaigners yesterday.

The Environment  Secretary claims that this measure would prevent Brexit from undermining hard-won environmental gains and that a statutory body would “hold the powerful to account” and deliver a “green” Brexit.

But his Labour shadow Sue Hayman said the government should also support her party’s environmental amendments to the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill next week.
 
Ms Hayman said: “We will have to wait to see whether the proposed watchdog will have the independence, powers and funding it needs to properly enforce environmental law after Brexit.

“Ensuring that environmental standards and protections are properly protected after Brexit requires a series of further changes to the withdrawal Bill, including the incorporation of the precautionary and polluter-pays principles into UK law.”

In the run-up to last summer’s general election, the Green Party warned that over 1,100 environmental regulations are enshrined in EU law and the government had yet to identify all of them.

Environmental campaigner Peter Frost said: “Mr Gove is suddenly talking the talk, but will he walk the walk?

“Now he’s getting into bed with Boris Johnson as part of their joint assault to take over No 10, British wildlife may well be cast aside, as the Tories have so often done before.”

The Green Party pointed out in July that the Tories were refusing to legislate for specific environmental protections.

Party co-leader Caroline Lucas said yesterday that it was “slightly odd, then, that Tories have done such an abysmal job of protecting planet while inside the EU — blocking stronger emission standards, watering down regulations, the list goes on.”