How Much Does the UK Spend on Pollution Legal Battles?

The UK government has spent hundreds of thousands of pounds’ worth of taxpayers’ money on fighting (and losing) legal battles with environmental law firm ClientEarth, it has emerged.

The revelation came after a freedom of information request, which showed that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) was forced to pay in excess of £360,000 to the law firm over two separate court cases.

Critics have labelled the expense as “disgraceful”, claiming that the funds should have been devoted to meeting its environmental obligations rather than losing court battles to try and get out of them.

Double your losses

The first court case came about in 2015, when the Tory government were accused of allowing illegal levels of the contaminant nitrogen dioxide (NO2) in the capital. Following a Supreme Court ruling in ClientEarth's favour, the government were ordered to pay £40,000 to ClientEarth in addition to the £42,459.20 spent on its own litigators.

The following year, the government found themselves back in court again after failing to publish a comprehensive plan to tackle the problem. Instead, their proposals were derided by critics as “woefully inadequate” (Sheffield council) and a “half-hearted commitment” (London Mayor Sadiq Khan).

They once again lost the case against ClientEarth and were ordered to pay £46,000 to the law firm, in addition to the £236,016.30 spent in building their own court case. All in all, those expenses add up to more than £360,000, money which could have been spent on ensuring residents of the UK can breathe clean air.

Twice bitten, thrice as shy?

At the beginning of October of this year, ClientEarth once again wrote to the environment secretary Michael Gove, demanding that he publish renewed proposals for how the government plans to improve air quality and reduce transport-related pollution. If he fails to comply, the Tories could soon find themselves facing even bigger expenditures in court again.

Earlier this month, Gove finally reacted to mounting scientific evidence about the biodiversity threats posed by pesticides, ordering an outright ban on neonicotinoids across the UK. The chemical has been repeatedly linked with the rapid decline of bees in Britain and abroad. This positive action has given some observers hope that Gove is finally taking his role as environment secretary seriously, and DEFRA has defended its policy in a statement:

“We have put in place a £3 billion plan to improve air quality and reduce harmful emissions. We will also end the sale of new diesel and petrol cars by 2040, and next year we will publish a comprehensive Clean Air Strategy which will set out further steps to tackle air pollution.”