Public Accounts Committee Confirms What MA Members Have Been Saying for Years

✅ KEY TAKEAWAY: Parliament confirms environmental regulation is fundamentally broken. Government must urgently replace directionless bureaucracy with an accountable, outcome-focused system that prioritizes real, on-the-ground results over endless paperwork.

The Public Accounts Committee’s report on environmental regulation delivers a verdict that will ring true for Moorland Association members across the uplands: the system is not working.

It’s failing to support nature recovery properly. It’s failing to support economic growth properly. And, most importantly, it’s failing the people who are expected to work within it every day.

For those managing land in the real world, none of this will come as a surprise.

Thank you to members

Before anything else, thank you.

Moorland Association members helped shape our submission to this inquiry. Your practical experience, your evidence and your willingness to explain how the system works on the ground helped ensure that some key messages were heard.

We made the case that the present model is too centralised, too process-heavy and too weak on accountability for real outcomes. What matters is not how many plans are written, or how many strategies are launched. What matters is whether anything actually changes on the ground.

This report suggests that message is starting to get through.

Parliament says the system is broken

The Committee’s language is unusually blunt.

It says that “The regulatory system is currently not working as well as it should to support nature recovery or economic growth.” It also says that the many changes under way “do not so far appear to be well-coordinated and drawn together”, and that it is “not convinced” regulators have the resources and skills needed to manage what lies ahead.

That is a striking conclusion, but it will not surprise MA members. Too many have had to deal with delay, conflicting advice, unclear rules and a system that appears more focused on process than delivery.

Defra is still not providing direction

Perhaps the most important finding in the report is that Defra still has not provided a clear sense of what environmental regulation is actually meant to achieve, or how the system should be organised to achieve it.

That goes to the heart of the problem.

It underlines the absurdity of having huge arms-length bodies while the department itself fails to provide proper strategic direction. These quangos are not just large and remote. They are also being asked to operate without a coherent framework from the department that created them.

It is no wonder the system has become reactive, fragmented and inconsistent.

Is it time to merge the regulators?

One of the most notable parts of the report is the suggestion that Defra should look at “the merits of bringing all its regulatory functions together”. Failing that, it should at least examine much closer cooperation between Natural England and the Environment Agency. That is a serious intervention.

The idea of merging Natural England and the Environment Agency may well have merit. Both organisations are struggling. Both are too often seen as slow, risk-averse and disconnected from practical delivery. A leaner structure, with less duplication and less head count, may help focus attention on outcomes rather than bureaucracy.

What matters is not preserving institutions for their own sake. What matters is whether the system delivers better habitats, cleaner water, more resilient landscapes and decisions made in time by people who are accountable for them.

Farmers, keepers and land managers are carrying the burden

The Committee is also clear about who is paying the price for this dysfunction.

It says Defra and the regulators are “not doing enough to provide guidance and support to help farms and other businesses comply”. It warns that further reforms risk creating “additional burdens and regulatory touchpoints for farmers”. Even the Environment Agency has acknowledged that parts of its own guidance are “confusing, difficult to follow, and should be revised.”

That should concern anyone who believes in fair and effective regulation. Farmers, keepers and land managers should not be penalised for failing to comply with rules that even the regulator accepts are unclear. Nor should they be expected to navigate a maze of overlapping bodies, shifting schemes and contradictory expectations without proper support.

Risk aversion is getting in the way

For moorland managers, this matters in very practical ways.

Risk aversion and institutional confusion do not remain abstract management problems. They turn into delay, disproportionate decisions, outdated assumptions and one-size-fits-all restrictions that undermine sensible land management.

The Committee notes that regulators still lack clarity from Defra about where they are empowered to take risks and innovate. It also raises concerns about Natural England’s capacity, including weaknesses in digital systems and decision-making.

Members know what this looks like in reality. It means a system that struggles to adapt, struggles to learn and too often treats practical land management as a problem rather than part of the solution.

Plans are not outcomes

One of the clearest lessons from this report is that the answer is not simply another plan, another scheme or another round of paperwork. Writing a plan is not an outcome. Publishing a strategy is not an outcome. Announcing a reform is not an outcome.

The only outcome that matters is whether something has improved on the ground, and whether anyone is accountable when it has not.

That is exactly why the Moorland Association argued for a system based on delivery, accountability and practical results. Accountability still seems, astonishingly, to be the missing ingredient. Activity is measured. Paperwork is produced. Structures are expanded. But responsibility for actual change on the ground remains far too weak.

Parliament identified this problem years ago

This is not a new discovery.

Parliament identified many of these problems years ago, and yet the same underlying issues remain. The system is still over-complicated. It is still weak on delivery. It is still poor at assigning real accountability.

Twenty years on, the basic diagnosis has barely changed.

That should tell ministers something important: this is no longer a matter of minor reform or better presentation. The design of the system itself is wrong.

Where are the other ideas?

It is also notable that, other than GWCT, the major environmental NGOs do not appear to have submitted evidence to this inquiry. No doubt many will now have views on the Committee’s report, but far fewer were willing to engage with the detail of how the system itself should be reformed.

They are offering no serious new ideas. Not even the old answer of simply demanding more money or more laws seems to have been advanced with any conviction. Everyone knows the system is broken. The real question is who is willing to fix it.

The MA has put forward a plan

The Moorland Association has done more than point out the problem. We have put forward a plan.

Our submission argued for clearer accountability, less duplication, more local responsibility and a stronger focus on what actually works. We called for a move away from a top-down, process-heavy model towards a system that is locally informed, outcome-focused and capable of delivering real improvement.

That is not a call to reduce ambition. Quite the opposite. It is a call to build a system that can finally match ambition with delivery.

The question now is who will act

This report matters because it shows these arguments are no longer easy to dismiss.

Parliament is now saying openly what land managers have known for years: the system is failing, Defra is not providing direction, regulators are overstretched, and the gap between activity and achievement has become impossible to ignore.

Members helped get that message through and that matters.

The Moorland Association has put forward a serious alternative. Now we will see which government is prepared to do something that really matters.

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