In her Budget statement, the Chancellor said the Government would do everything in its power to grow the UK economy. And the Prime Minister’s Plan for Change reasserted this on Thursday.

That should be good news for nature. In theory, at least. Because it’s no secret that economic prosperity is underpinned by a thriving natural world: clean water, healthy ecosystems, a stable climate. We can’t have one without the other.

But nature is in trouble. Just a few weeks before the Budget, there was another bleak report about the widespread depletion of wildlife species. It’s the latest in a long series of alarm bells about the state of nature – reaffirmed by nature minister Mary Creagh after the recent UN Biodiversity Conference when she said: “It’s never been more important to tackle the nature and climate crises.”