A claim of no evidence

This seems somewhat surprising:

There is very little evidence that protections for nature are a blocker to development, the government has admitted in its own impact assessment of the controversial new planning and infrastructure bill.

The analysis by Whitehall officials provides no data or research to back up the government’s central argument that it is environmental legislation that holds up building.

Note what the actual claim is though. In their analysis of whether environmental laws hold up building the government has not pointed to any academic evidence that it does so. Not that there is no such evidence - they’ve just not pointed to any. This is then being taken by those in favour of such regulation as the statement that environmental regulation does not hold up building. Which is more than a little leap of logic.

For, obviously enough, if environmental regulation does not hold up, affect, delay, change or otherwise deflect building then why do we have environmental regulation of who may build where? What is it being defended so vehemently if it has no effect?

It’s also tosh of course:

We can’t build on greenfield sites because that is to mumble, mumble, nature. We can’t build on brownfield sites because the sort of bugs that colonise brownfield sites must be mumble mumble…..They really are insisting that brownfield sites cannot be developed because there are bugs that like brownfield sites. Not even native bugs, just windblown driveby bugs.

All those people who cannot now live in Ebbsfleet are our evidence.

But then bad logic, extreme claims and complete tosh - how rare it is to see such things in political claims, eh?

Tim Worstall