WILD JUSTICE — THE COURTS, THE LAWYERS, PARLIAMENT, PLANNING, BADGERS AND MORE

Good morning, In today’s newsletter we bring you an update on our work with the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, as well some analysis of our recent success in our Badger-related costs case. Planning and Infrastructure Bill – no green light for us. We’ve recently been back to the High Court in London, this time for a hearing to seek permission for judicial review relating to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill (PIB). Along with many other conservation organisations and legal experts, we believed this Bill poses a very serious threat to environmental protections in the UK. We still believe this. In April 2025, Angela Rayner MP (at the time the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, as well as Deputy Prime Minister) stated to Parliament that the PIB would not reduce environmental protections in law. We disagreed, and so commissioned expert barristers to review the Bill - click here to read about it. Their legal opinion was that the Bill would significantly weaken existing environmental safeguards, particularly for protected nature sites. After the government ignored our calls to correct the Minister’s statement – which we believed to be false - we lodged an application for judicial review of the Minister’s statement at the High Court. We're disappointed to have to tell you that following a hearing on 6 November 2025, we weren’t given permission for judicial review – there’s no green light for us. Following the hearing, in which the government was represented by its leading government barrister, the court has ruled that it cannot question the Minister’s statement, as it is part of a parliamentary process. It is a matter solely for members of Parliament to scrutinise the government’s advice. Our case shows that Parliament cannot assume the legal accuracy of a statement made to Parliament by a Minister, even where it concerns matters of law, and even where the statement is made pursuant to a statutory duty. Indeed, counsel for the Secretary of State went as far in the hearing to submit that even if such a statement was made in bad faith, i.e. in the knowledge that it was inaccurate, and even if this could be proven, the courts would still be unable to consider a challenge against such a statement due to the wide scope of parliamentary privilege. According to the High Court, only Parliament can scrutinise whether this and any other Bill will amount to environmental regression in law. It is therefore vitally important that lawmakers do not take what is said by the government about the Bill at face value, as there is no way to test the accuracy of their claims in court. The Bill and the claims about its legal effect should therefore be closely examined by parliamentarians. So it is now over to Parliament. If Parliament cares about the UK departing from minimum standards for protection of the environment, keeping pace with the EU, and meeting our Treaty commitments not to reduce environmental protections, it has one last chance to say so in the final stretch of this Bill. As always, we want to give a heartfelt thank you to our brilliant legal time for fighting this for us: Carol Day and Ricardo Gama (Leigh Day) and Alex Goodman KC and Alex Shattock (Landmark Chambers). You can read a press release about the outcome of our legal challenge on our blog – click here. Aarhus Alive! Discussion on our recent Badger-related costs win: We recently celebrated a significant win after the courts blocked an attempt by Natural England to hike our legal costs for our upcoming case on Badger cull licences – click here to catch up. Since then, there’s been some interesting discussion in the legal world around the repercussions of this positive result. First, one of our brilliant lawyers, Carol Day, featured on the Law Pod podcast, joining a panel to discuss the importance of being able to take environmental claims in the courts without suffering punitive cost consequences. Click here to listen. Secondly, we hope you’ll enjoy this humorous summary of our case, along with its implications for the Aarhus convention and environmental organisations being able to afford legal proceedings. The blog is written by Alex Shattock, a barrister practising in public, planning and environmental law – click here to read it. The substantial hearing for our legal challenge against the Badger cull licences is set to be heard over two days at the High Court in December. And finally... please note: We're in the midst of updating the way we handle donations from you (our wonderful supporters). We can't accept PayPal donations for a short period, whilst we update our system, so please only use bank transfers or cheques for any donations in the next week or so, thank you! That’s all for now, but we’ll be back very soon with news about the illegal release of gamebirds next to a Special Protection Area (SPA) deep in the English countryside and how the enforcement authorities responded when we drew it to their attention. Thank you, Wild Justice (CEO: Bob Elliot. Directors: Chris Packham and Ruth Tingay). This is the 256th Wild Justice newsletter. This email was sent to you because you subscribed to it through the Wild Justice website or through an e-action or a petition where you ticked a box. Thank you. We will only use your personal details to send you the Wild Justice newsletter. We will not give or sell your details to anyone else. You can unsubscribe at any time: there is an unsubscribe button at the foot of this email or you can reply to this email and ask us to remove you from the list (the former will happen immediately, the latter might take a few days). 124, City Road London Greater London EC1V 2NX UNITED KINGDOM Unsubscribe | Change Subscriber Options