Speaking in an interview with CSW, she said that “business needs certainty about regulations if they are to adapt their businesses accordingly in the long-term, and chucking all regulation in the air is unsettling and not good practice. Many of the regulations that are threatened are perfectly sensible ways of protecting the environment and encouraging sustainability.”

Walley also criticised the government’s ‘bonfire of the quangos’, commenting said that “you need a lot of these bodies, or something like them, to ensure good practice”.

In particular, she criticised the scrapping of the Sustainable Development Commission, an arm’s-length body which used to scrutinise government sustainability. “It is early days, but the government did not take account of the resource and the capacity that was in the commission, including civil servants seconded from other departments, when they decided to axe it,” she said. “It’s hard to think that, having lost all that expertise and experience, the work will be as effective as it was.”

She also said that government spending cuts are harming environmental efforts in government. “The bottom line for the government is: ‘Make the cuts, make the cuts, make the cuts’, leaving the green growth agenda to wither,” she said.

A spokesperson for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said that “cross-government ministerial leadership, tangible measuring and monitoring, as well as independent scrutiny will play crucial roles in helping to build a green economy whilst tackling the deficit”

Written by CSW