Alison Murphy/Peat-free Partnership
By Sally Nex, Peat-free Partnership
The first 100 days of any new government’s time in office traditionally do a lot of heavy lifting.
It’s a time when you bring in your biggest, flashiest policies: the ones that mark you out from your predecessors, signal the direction you hope your government will follow, and generally lay out your stall.
And just as traditionally, everyone piles in with all the stuff they’d like the government to do first.
But there’s a limit to what you can actually achieve in just 100 days. That’s only just a little more than three months: in this new government’s case, that takes us to around mid-October (and the MPs who debate and vote on any new policies will be on holiday for much of that time).
Anything likely to get achieved in that kind of time has to be the complete package: doable, with a clear end goal, and ideally with a good spread of support across the parties and among the electorate, too.
We’ve got just the thing.
Legislation to end peat use in horticulture: that’s all we’re asking for. Just one thing.
Alison Murphy/Peat-free Partnership
It was promised so often in the last Parliament many gardeners believe peat is already banned. But it’s still perfectly legal to sell peat, in your bagged composts and in the plants you buy at the garden centre. It’s not necessary to put on the label that the product you’re buying contains peat, either – so you could be innocently buying plants and compost which are directly contributing to climate change and biodiversity loss.
So let’s bring the uncertainty to an end. It’s unfinished business in any case: the Horticultural Peat (Prohibition of Sale) Bill was within a week of being published when the General Election was called. It’s still here, ready and waiting to go before MPs.
Alison Murphy/Peat-free Partnership
Happily, ending peat sales also ticks the box for every single one of new Environment Secretary Steve Reed’s five stated environmental priorities:
Ending peat sales has support from MPs across the spectrum, as well as 95% of the public. The impact surveys have been done; all the consultations have been held; the Bill is ready to go. We’ve been talking about this too long. Let’s get it done.
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