No Space for Newts and Bats

Political utterances are seldom worth philosophical engagement. Most are exercises in sloganeering and intended only for popular sound-bite consumption. But some are serious indications of an underlying political philosophy (or lack of one) and so are worthy of attention. Such is the case by the speech by Rachel Reeves, the UK's chancellor of the exchequer. She says, “We are reducing the environmental requirements placed on developers . . . so they can focus on getting things built and stop worrying about bats and newts” (Reeves, 2025).This view was endorsed by Angela Rayner, former deputy prime minister: “We can't have a situation where a newt's more protected than people who desperately need housing” (Baker, 2024). The background to these remarks is the Labour government's commitment to build one and a half million new homes by the end of the Parliament, that is, within 4 years. A laudable aim one might think, but what is not laudable is the idea that such development must come at the cost of other protected species.The logic behind these statements is commonplace but still deeply troubling. It is this: human interests, however direct, indirect, plausible or simply hypothetical, should always trump the interests of other sentient beings—in this case their right to live and have homes to live in. The aim is laudable, but the logic is lamentable.Even more: Regulations that preserve or protect other species will be jettisoned or practically reduced as the chancellor explains (Reeves, 2025). And local objections will be disregarded. Thus, the usual (and hard fought) limitations on local and government power will be drastically curtailed. The regulations that protect newts and bats will ineluctably be widened to include other species, save the human ones. It is easy to joke about bats and newts (and thus trivialize the issue) until one appreciates the full implications of what is being said.Consider the following. Oxford attracts an estimated 17 million visitors every year. But why do they come? To see the historic seat of learning? Yes. To admire the beautiful historic buildings (despite the hideous modern architecture)? Yes. But surely much more. Despite the traffic and the busy streets, Oxford is a green experience (including encounters with other creatures): the deer at Magdalen College, the lake at Worcester College, the leafy walks and famous punting along the River Cherwell, the magnificent meadows, the unmanicured college quads like Merton College, the centuries-old shrubs and trees, the botanical gardens, Wytham Woods, and the university parks and gardens. An aerial view of Oxford shows the college quads and the soaring spires, but otherwise Oxford is a mass of green.People cannot live by houses alone. We need fresh, clean air; waterways devoid of sewage; places to provide mental recuperation, even spiritual solace; and, not least of all, trees, flowers, and fellow creatures that evoke wonder and awe. As the poet W. H. Davies (1911) once wrote: What is this life if, full of care,We have no time to stand and stare. (p. 15)These so called “natural spaces” are not optional extras, they enable the fullness of the human experience and often give us meaning. There is a joy in simply seeing other creatures live.What is more, Reeves's (2025) assertion that newts and bats are holding up planning permissions is highly questionable. According to a recent report by the Wildlife Trusts, “These protected species are rarely a factor in planning appeal decisions. In 2024, bats and great crested newts were a factor in just 3.3% of planning appeal decisions” (Wildlife Trusts, 2025, p. 1) What we have here is the scapegoating of animals that are rarely to blame for poor economic and housing policy. (See these thoughtful critiques: Horton, 2025; Phelps, 2025; Simpson, 2025).More practically, the chancellor presents us with a false juxtaposition. It is possible to build in an environmentally and animal-friendly way. For more than 50 years, planners have been devising projects that enhance the natural environment and provide homes for the other creatures that live alongside us. We can build houses with facilities for bats, birds, even “swift walls,” as well as ponds for amphibians. Indeed, recent changes in law proposed in the House of Lords could see buildings with “bird-safe glass” and “hedgehog highways” (Lewis, 2025). What we need is greater innovation in planning and home building to help us build a more harmonious way of living with other animals.Andrew Linzey and Clair LinzeyThe Centre is delighted to announce the appointed of three new associate editors of the Journal of Animal Ethics, who have also been appointed as research fellows of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics.Jacob Brandler is a postdoctoral fellow at the Rothermere American Institute. Jacob completed a DPhil in history at the University of Oxford in 2025, also holding a JD from Cornell University and an MA in history from Missouri State University. Ongoing research interests include intellectual history, the praxis of veganism and anti-carnism, and the social construction of concepts, such as humanity and animality. Recently, these scholarly pursuits led to a dissertation entitled “Un-freeing the Other: The Reinvention of American Human Exceptionalism in the Antebellum United States, 1839-1859” which explored how racial science in the mid-Nineteenth Century, American polygenism, and the responses of Frederick Douglass, remade the meaning of humanity and its intersection with the legal regimes and social imagination forming the American nation-state of the United States. Publications include: “Do ‘Animals’ Have Histor(ies)? Can/Should Humans Know Them? A Heuristic Reframing of Animal-Human Relationships.” Journal of Animal Ethics. Vol 12, No. 2 (2022): 148-157. Republished in Animal History: History as If Animals Mattered (Wipf and Stock, 2025). He is a former president of the Oxford University Animal Ethics Society.Mirjam von Bechtolsheim is an early career research associate at the Institute of Classical Studies in the University of London. A classical archaeologist by training, Mirjam completed her PhD on the material culture and religious practices of the people of ancient Umbria (Italy) at the Open University and Fitzwilliam Museum in the University of Cambridge in 2025. Throughout her doctoral research, she maintained a visiting studentship with the University of Oxford, where she had previously studied for her MPhil in Classical Archaeology and her BA in Classical Archaeology and Ancient History. She is a long-standing member of the Oxford University Animal Ethics Society and has presented on animal sacrifice in Roman England at the Society as well as at the Animal History Group's Summer Conference. She is keenly interested in research that challenges current assumptions about the status and rights of animals, explores their ethical and historical underpinnings, and suggests new ethical perspectives on human-animal relationships.Malcolm Hay completed his doctoral thesis, “Other Perspectives: The Representation of Animals in the Poetry of Thomson, Smart, Cowper and Burns” at the University of Oxford in October 2024. In 2023, he received a Postgraduate Research Award from the British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies for his paper “Animals at Work and Play in the Poetry of Robert Burns.” Malcolm has served as an ambassador at the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics Summer School in 2024 and 2025. He also delivered two papers at these events. The first was about the animal thinker Christopher Smart, and the second looked at the plight of caged birds in eighteenth-century Britain. The summer 2025 edition of the JAE published his paper “The Struggle for Ethical Compassion in Robert Burns's “To a Mouse.”” Malcolm's research mainly focuses on eighteenth-century English literature. He is an alumni of the Oxford University Animal Ethics Society