Keir Starmer has picked the wrong fight this time ...Middle East

Natural England designated part of this brownfield land a site of special scientific interest (SSSI), which means it cannot be built on.

Sir Keir and his advisers must have thought that this would sit well with Telegraph readers. Here was a Labour Prime Minister who would stand up to the green lobby. Here was someone who would put economic growth before environmental concerns.

By “stopping it”, was he referring in general to the law which gives Natural England, a quango set up in 2006, power to “conserve, enhance and manage the natural environment for the benefit of present and future generations”? Or did he mean the particular situation at Ebbsfleet, where the previous government had spent £35m on a brownfield site with the intention of building a garden city, only 17 minutes (or so it’s said) from central London by high-speed rail link?

And quite right too. When Natural England was set up, its only purpose was to give primacy to the protection of our landscape and biodiversity, and hang the fact that “progress” might be held up by the unearthing of a family of rare Bechstein’s bats (as happened with the building of the HS2 rail line). Why should a group of environmentally conscious public servants be put in a position where it has to balance the country’s housing needs with the protection of rare species, even of jumping spiders?

square HILARY MCGRADY

The National Trust won’t sit by while our political parties fail the environment

So what does the PM (or indeed his deputy, Angela Rayner, who’s in charge of these matters) intend to do? Does the Government intend to weaken Natural England’s remit? In which case, where does it start? And where does it draw the line?

Of course, it sounds illogical that housing for 15,000 people is prohibited by the existence of a few spiders. And Starmer is right to want to tackle planning bureaucracy. But this is the wrong fight. Natural England’s raison d’etre is to safeguard the environment – our most precious asset – from rapacious developers, and to ensure that future generations will benefit from a biodiverse landscape. It is a noble purpose that shouldn’t be derided or diminished.

If this Government is intent on reframing of our environmental protections in the pursuit of its holy grail of growth, it should tread extremely carefully. We fail to defend the airborne arachnids of Ebbsfleet at our peril.

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