Environmental Audit Committee

2 septembre 2026

The Chair opens the valedictory hearing and Juniper and Spain reflect on Natural England’s turnaround since 2019, the persistent ‘nature vs growth’ political framing, levels of ministerial support, and the need to embed nature recovery objectives across all government departments rather than treating them as solely a Defra issue.

Environmental Audit Committee

00:02 - 01:03

Intervenant 2

Order, order, welcome everyone to the latest meeting of the Environmental Audit Committee, and delighted to have with us for a valedictory session from Natural England, Dr. Tony Juniper and Marian Spain. Both of you, thank you so much for agreeing to come along to today's session. Often these sessions as people leave posts are extremely valuable and give an opportunity for people to look back on their achievements and the things that they wish they might have done or been allowed to do. So, firstly, I think on behalf of the committee, say to both of you, thank you very much for your contribution and commitment to your roles. Tony, starting with you, obviously seven glorious years.

Are you glad to be going or sad to be going?

01:03 - 02:04

Intervenant 1

It's been an absolute pleasure and a demanding role, but one in which I've been pleased to be able to make some progress on this big job of nature recovery in Britain. I think it's fair to say that when Marian and I came to work together in 2019, the organisation wasn't in a great space. It was quite demoralised, quite weak. And during my early months, I remember thinking that there are three things that need to happen. Number one is that we need to get a strategy that's fit for purpose, one which is combining all of this diverse work that we do across 500 different powers and duties which we've been granted by Parliament over decades.

How do we make sense of that for best possible impact for the country? That was a big heading. Second thing was about funding. We had a pretty slender budget compared with now. And the third thing was about restoring morale and confidence in the organisation.

La suite de la transcription est réservée aux clients Pro

Débloquez la transcription complète, le chat et toutes les fonctionnalités d'analyse avec Polyfact Pro.