Examination of witnesses (Questions 274
- 299)
TUESDAY 21 APRIL 1998
MS FIONA
REYNOLDS and MR
PAUL HAMBLIN
Chairman
274. Good morning and welcome, both of you,
to our Committee and thank you also for your written evidence
which was as cogent and penetrating as ever, if I may say so.
I believe we also have to congratulate you, Ms Reynolds, on becoming
Director of the Women's Issues Unit in the DSS.
(Ms Reynolds) Yes.
275. So a fully-fledged civil servant.
(Ms Reynolds) Yes, I will be and thank you very
much indeed.
276. I hope the transition is not too difficult.
(Ms Reynolds) So do I!
277. Anyway, congratulations and I hope
you do well. As I say, we were grateful for your evidence because
it was particularly clear and thoughtful and also for your supplementary
evidence which came in more recently. Is there anything you would
like to add to that before we kick off with some questions?
(Ms Reynolds) Yes, I would briefly, if I may.
I think the important thing to recognise is that this Government
came into office with the greenest manifesto of any incoming government
and it is against that background, of high expectations that the
environment would be a high priority, and indeed a commitment
in the manifesto to put the environment at the heart of decision-making
that the Government's performance should be judged by this inquiry.
We congratulate the Committee on selecting this issue as the subject
for inquiry and indeed we also congratulate you on your first
report which showed that you are committed to keeping the Government
up to the mark on these issues. I think it is a wonderful endorsement
of the fact that this was one of the first steps the Government
took in furtherance of its Greening Government commitments. I
have to say, however, that it does need to be kept up to the mark
because although there have been some very important developments
and some important signs of progress, not least the setting up
of this Committee, I think it is fair to say that the Government
is not yet putting the environment at the heart of decision-making
across the board, and indeed there are some examples where it
is not really very visible at all. It seems to us that that is
the challenge for this inquiry to address. Some progress has of
course been made in its own right and we would cite the Water
Summit and the commitment to the complete review of the roads
programme as very good examples of a genuine commitment at the
outset to see the environment as a high priority. Some progress
has almost been wrung out of controversy, and perhaps the housing
issue is one that I can use as an example because the CPRE was
so centrally involved. The Government was not minded initially
to make the changes, but as soon as it saw how serious public
concerns were, we are very glad that it was prepared to move.
John Prescott's White Paper was a very, very important step forward,
but it in a sense emerged from controversy rather than from a
proactive commitment from the Government. There are some areas,
some of which I know you are interested in, for example, in the
DTI's portfolio, where we are not yet seeing the environment anything
like as central as it needs to be. That is in a sense the underpinning
message of our evidence to you, that we are not yet seeing a systematic,
thorough commitment to Greening Government across the board. The
sorts of mechanisms and procedures that need to be put in place
may exist, but are not yet being implemented as thoroughly as
they need to be, and that is what we hope will change as a result
of this inquiry. So the three central messages I would like to
put to you at the outset are: first of all, the crucial importance
of the Cabinet Committee's role and the need for that to be more
visible and more transparent as a vehicle for engaging all government
departments and all of those with an interest in the environment
or indeed activities which have a bearing on the environment;
secondly, the need for new and stronger mechanisms to lead to
new outputs, and I am thinking here of strategic environmental
assessment, which we have emphasised in our evidence; the process
of policy appraisal in the environment which we believe needs
to be built on and strengthened; and the Comprehensive Spending
Review, which is the crucial instrument in this process, culminating
in a sustainable development strategy that really has the authority
and the full weight of the Government behind it and is seen as
a high priority. Again, that is beginning to happen, but it does
not carry the weight and authority that it needs to. Finally,
a very simple message which is that of political leadership where
the Deputy Prime Minister is in a wonderful position to advance
the cause of environmental integration and he is doing so in certain
areas, but not yet fully across the board even in his own Department,
and we want to see a more visible commitment from the Prime Minister
in furtherance of the manifesto commitment to show that he and
all the members of his Cabinet and Government are going to make
a reality of this very important commitment. I hope that is a
helpful preamble to our evidence.
Chairman: Well, thank you very much
indeed and I certainly agree with you about political leadership;
I think that is going to be very, very important in all of this,
but that has to flow forward into the mechanisms which are set
up to sustain it throughout government. The first thing we want
to ask you about, and Mr Truswell would like to begin on this,
is the whole question of environmental appraisal. We have got
this report of course which has come out recently and we would
like to have some of your views on that.
Mr Truswell
278. In your supplementary evidence you
do make quite an interesting critique and I think really quite
constructive criticism of this particular document, but there
are one or two points that you made which I would like you to
amplify. On page three of your supplementary evidence, in one
of the section six bullet points, you said that "the guidance
envisages little or no role for environmental authorities (such
as the Countryside Commission or Environment Agency)", which
is probably a fair thing to say, although the Environment Agency
are listed in section 8 as a possible source of information. I
suppose my question on that one is what greater role would you
envisage for the agencies you have mentioned over and above that
which is implied in this document? I suppose the second question
because it is part of the same bullet point is about the public
involvement in the appraisal process and what greater public participation
do you think is feasible and how would you achieve it over and
above what is likely to happen, for example, in the kind of end
stage, formal consultation processes?
(Ms Reynolds) Well, I will pass to my colleague
in a moment to answer the detailed point, but in principle the
point we want to make is that there is an enormous amount of expertise
out there in the agencies, in the non-departmental public bodies,
who, we believe, have a very constructive and important role to
play in advising the government departments and others on the
choices available at a very early stage in the decision-making
process. Our main criticism of all these processes is that they
are not yet happening early enough and, therefore, bringing in
those bodies at a time when policy is very fluid and there are
opportunities to think, "Well, maybe there is a completely
different way forward", seems to us to be the key opportunity
that this process presents, but I would like to pass over to Paul
to deal with the detailed question.
(Mr Hamblin) I think that it is important that
those organisations who do have environmental responsibilities
are brought in much earlier than they are at present. As Fiona
has explained, they are in a better position to be able to explain
alternative approaches which might be adopted and may not be obvious
to the civil servant who is developing policy in that particular
area. Therefore, by ensuring that they are brought in at the early
stage, as I think the KPMG report on the use of environmental
appraisal showed, you are not closing off alternative options.
279. How would you strengthen the guidance
to build that in because, trying to put myself in the place of
a civil servant, the easiest thing in the world every time you
were confronted with something like an environmental implication
would simply be to shovel it off to one of these agencies and
say, "Look, I have done my bit and I have brought you in
at the earliest possible stage", and that would be a logistical
nightmare for everybody, so how would you overcome that problem?
(Ms Reynolds) I think it is about having opportunities
when policy is being devised. Obviously that is a constant process
and there is never one moment when you say, "Today we are
going to devise the policy", but it is a rolling process.
The public involvement dimension is actually quite important here
too.
280. Yes, I noticed you had not answered
that point.
(Ms Reynolds) We will come to that. In a sense
the tendency within government is to maintain the status quo,
to roll forward the way it has been done in the past and it is
completely understandable, but what it means is that you lock
yourself into a particular world view and a particular way of
doing things. Now, there are a number of ways in which we feel
that that process could be opened up. One is the agencies coming
into the department and sharing with officials at a very early
stage quite open discussions about, for example, postulating no
more roads being built. Now, five years ago that would have been
almost inconceivable, but that has now happened and it has happened
partly as a result of public anxiety and public protest. Another
way of doing it is to use some of the mechanisms which the Government
is now embarking on for dialogue, such as citizens' juries, and
the engagement of the public in debates about future choices for
this country which can inform those decision-making processes
at a very early stage. It is not about putting out a consultation
paper to 54 million people because that is clearly impractical,
but about using new processes of dialogue and communication with
the public to inform decisions at a very early stage. It means
thinking differently, it means thinking laterally and it means
opening up the dialogue at an early stage to options and different
choices, but we believe that is the way forward. It could bring
enormous benefit and minimise some of the clashes which arise
when a particular policy is then exposed to public view and the
public say, "This is not the way we feel things should go".
The roads programme is perhaps the most classic example of that
in the late 1980s/early 1990s, but there are public policy areas
where those clashes are still felt, such as the housing one which
we have not yet got through, but it is another example.
281. I wonder whether it would be possible
some time in the future for you perhaps to produce some further
evidence to elucidate that point and maybe to take some existing
or future policy areas and say what you would feel would be the
appropriate approach of involving the agencies and also the public.
The final question I would like to ask you on this particular
issue is that you set great store by the EU Directive on SEAs
and I wonder if you could just summarise for us what you feel
the advantages are of that particular process and how more valuable
they are than the current processes which have been employed.
(Mr Hamblin) One of the main benefits from the
draft Directive is that it provides a greater structure to the
appraisal process. Rather than saying, "Let's consider what
the potential impacts might be" in a rather unstructured
way, the Directive says, "There are certain issues that you
need to consider and there are certain people you need to consult".
And that helps to identify in particular some of the less obvious
impacts which may be very significant, but not necessarily obvious.
SEA, through the process of engaging members of the public and
environmental authorities, because that is one of the requirements
in the Directive, does provide a more systematic approach. Perhaps
I can use an analogy in terms of the need for a structured approach.
If everybody in this room was told, for example, to attend a conference
in New York this evening for two weeks, then we would rush home
and quickly pack things, anything that came to mind very quickly.
That is completely different from where you have planned a holiday
for two weeks in the same place and you have identified what items
you will need and what the activities are that you are going to
be undertaking. And I think, although perhaps stretching it, there
are similarities with policy development, you do need to take
that structured approach. We do have examples in this country
and certainly abroad where SEA is being applied. And although
there can be improvements to how it is being applied, there is
expertise and it is a tried method.
Mr Truswell: Could
I similarly ask for further information on that? I would welcome
that.
Chairman: We come
on to the role of Green Ministers now and the general machinery
of government which is obviously central to all of this.
Mrs Brinton
282. I was very encouraged by your words
of enthusiasm in your opening remarks about the strides that this
Government has actually made to date, and I think it is fair to
say that we would all agree with that and it is very good to see
a government actually putting the environment at the heart of
policy, but I also noted your comments, which I think were greeted
with resonance around the table, when you said that you felt that
to some extent the approach had perhaps been a little bit patchwork
in that a lot had been done in some areas and not in others and
that there was not, if you like, a complete approach across all
policy areas and all departments. Now, I think that we have noted
particularly in the course of this inquiry that when Ministers
are actually questioned about the Green Ministers' Committee,
they tend to immediately go rather green at the gills and the
whole mention of the Committee seems to swathe them in embarrassment.
We felt that the previous Government had certainly not afforded
the Green Ministers' Committee proper respect, that there was
a lot of substitution with officials and in fact that became almost
the norm and we were hoping for more positive strides this time,
but both Mr Rooker and Mr Spellar, whom we have interviewed, admitted
that in fact this substitution is still going on, they did not
really seem to see that there was a problem in it, although we
certainly did on this Committee, and both admitted that it had
actually only met twice so far. We are also very concerned and
wondered if you could offer some light on this or some suggestion
in terms of how the Ministers on the Green Ministers' Committee
are actually selected. Whilst I believe it was Mr Rooker—correct
me if I am wrong—who actually said that he was in fact the
most senior Minister from MAFF and, therefore, the Green Minister,
it appears that in some other departments it is the most junior
Minister that is chosen, so I certainly was worried about this
myself and wondered whether, if you have got such a mix of ranks
in the troops on the Committee, how can you really have proper
discussion, particularly if minutes are actually produced in that
way? Also there does not really seem to be any coherence yet,
although we hope this will come, in terms of what actually this
Green Ministers' Committee is supposed to do, so what is it there
for? Is it there just for the purpose of existing because it has
a rather nice title and how does it actually feed in with the
Environment Minister, Mr Meacher? Both Mr Spellar and Mr Rooker
made much play of the fact that there were these helpful, useful
bilateral meetings with Mr Meacher, but I think some of us did
come away with the idea that these were probably more learning
opportunities for the Environment Minister rather than a proper
opportunity for a critique on the performance of Green Ministers
and really what are the criteria against which their performance
should be measured? If there are any comments you can make on
all of that, I would be most grateful.
(Ms Reynolds) I think you have put your finger
on some very important issues and we share your analysis very
largely. What concerns us is that there is not a clear rationale
either for the appointment of Green Ministers or indeed for their
role and their connection not only with the Environment Ministers,
but with the Cabinet Committee on the Environment and in fact
the Greening Government process. In theory, there ought to be
a vision or a framework for the Greening Government process which
is driven forward by a number of different, but connected and
complementary means, one of which would be the Cabinet Committee
on the Environment and, as I say, we do not know enough about
what that is doing or saying and what role it is playing; and
then there will be the Green Ministers in each department connecting
their department's work with the wider programme of commitment
to Greening Government; then there would be the role of the Environment
Minister in its conventional form, including the Sustainable Development
Unit which is a new and rather interesting device where we feel
we have not yet seen anything like its full potential being exploited;
and then the mechanisms of policy appraisal of the environment
and all the devices we have just been talking about acting as
the procedural mechanisms to drive those processes forward. They
do not seem to be connected at the moment and I think that is
one of the things that we would hope your inquiry would recommend,
that there is a more visible and clear framework for all of those
different elements to pull together. In a sense I am not completely
sharing your concerns about all the Green Ministers having to
be at the same level. I think what is much more important is that
they know what they are there to do and can have the influence
back in their own departments that they need to have. Sometimes
a very senior Minister will be appropriate and sometimes we are
told, and we are prepared to believe it, that a more junior Minister
is more available to attend meetings than a member of the Cabinet.
Now, we are not quite sure whether that is being followed through
because, as you say, substitution is occurring, but in principle
there does not need to be every Minister at the same level. What
we do need is clarity and confidence that they are doing the job
that they were asked to do. Finally, there is a difference between
housekeeping as a Green Minister's job; internal good practices
in the Department, such as what is the energy consumption, what
is the paper consumption and recycling like, through to a mission
to deal with the policy agenda. I think we are very much on the
bottom of that curve into a much more substantial role for the
Green Ministers and we would like to see that process advanced
quickly.
Chairman
283. Do you not think there ought to be
a systematic attempt to monitor the extent to which appraisals
are taking place inside departments and that one of the Green
Ministers' jobs should be reporting back to the Green Ministers'
Committee on exactly what has happened and particularly ticking
them off or crossing them off as the case may be?
(Ms Reynolds) Absolutely, and one of the points
we make in our evidence is that we would like copies of the policy
appraisals, since we have found it very hard to discover whether
these really exist and in what form, to be produced by each government
department. The Green Ministers should play a monitoring role,
but we also suggest that copies might be sent to you and that
there might be some wider form of scrutiny and analysis of how
effective those policy appraisals are, but certainly that is a
crucial role that the Green Ministers could play.
Mr Thomas
284. You talked about the lack of vision
of the Greening Government process and Mrs Brinton raised the
specific issue of Green Ministers, but I wondered whether there
were any sort of changes to the structure of the cross-departmental
measures for the Greening Government process that you would actually
like to see as opposed to the concern just about a lack of overall
coherence.
(Ms Reynolds) This relates both to the role of
the Cabinet Committee, which is a very important pan-government
bit of machinery which I have already commented on, and the Sustainable
Development Unit, which is perhaps the other new institution which
could play a more proactive role. At the moment, as far as we
can tell, it is operating largely within and around DETR issues
and we have not seen much evidence of it going out as a missionary
to other government departments, or indeed other departments calling
it in and saying, "Please advise us. We have got some difficult
challenges here and we would like your advice". With these
units, of which actually there are three, the Social Exclusion
Unit, the Women's Unit and the Sustainable Development Unit, it
would be quite interesting to map what all three of them are doing
and the extent to which these pan-government issues and cross-cutting
issues, which are very much a part of the contemporary challenge
of government, can actually be advanced. The Sustainable Development
Unit does seem to us to offer great promise in that area, but
I think it needs to be more visible and more proactive inside
the Government machine in the way that I have described.
285. So no actual changes to the structure,
as such, but more a development of the existing bits of the structure,
so to speak?
(Ms Reynolds) I think there are endless ways in
which you can devise good structures of government and we might
come on to the current MAFF/DETR relationship which is under active
discussion at the moment. There is no perfect government structure,
of that I am quite sure. What I think is very important is to
recognise that the current vertically structured pattern of government
which has been in existence now for decades does not deliver the
cross-cutting agendas of which sustainable development is a crucial
one. Therefore, you need mechanisms to cut across those institutions.
It may be that the Sustainable Development Unit will turn out
not to be the perfect institution, it is very early days yet,
but we would like to see it being given more opportunity to engage
on this cross-government dialogue and to advance the cause of
sustainable development right across government.
Mrs Brinton
286. If I could just come back on that in
terms of what I call a level playing field or a sort of parity,
would there be any sort of role for either the Cabinet Committee,
the Unit, or indeed the Green Ministers' Committee for actually
getting the equality of sustainable development and equality of
green practice within the departments because certainly at the
moment the feeling that I have is that although the words are
there and that is the stated governmental desire and intention,
what we have actually got are these ancient departmental institutions
that are almost organisations on their own with their own character
regardless of the colour of the Government and they do things
as they have always done them? For example, in terms of the Ministry
of Defence, Mr Spellar was very proud of that Department's record
in green matters, but then we noted that their Green Statement
remained completely unchanged from the previous Government and
we asked that if it was going to be changed or looked at or added
to, and the attitude was very defensive, if I may so, such that,
"Well, actually we would not see any reason to change it
unless there was a sort of need to". Now, MAFF may be operating
in a very different way and industry may have its own particular
statement which has gone on for generations and generations and
so why should we change it, but would there not be a role for
the institutions we have described in actually getting that type
of parity and clarity across departments?
(Mr Hamblin) I certainly think that there is an
important role and we would want to be seeing the Sustainable
Development Unit pushing the Greening Government agenda with vigour,
but also Green Ministers within their departments taking the initiative
forward. I think one of the key opportunities that the Government
now has, is through the Comprehensive Spending Review, actually
to look at what are the aims and objectives for each government
department and is sustainable development, is environmental protection,
included in those aims and objectives. Because once you have got
those included as your key overarching objectives for your department,
then the department is forced to look at its internal structure
to see whether it can deliver on those objectives. I would just
point out that in terms of the Sustainable Development Unit, and
its workload that you mentioned, I noticed that the Unit has a
staff of 14. We, at the last count, have 18 government departments.
Given that all of those departments are undertaking lots of reviews,
producing consultations, and responsible for a whole variety of
different programmes, there is a question mark as to how much
of the work of the Sustainable Development Unit is being influenced
internally within DETR and how much is actually coming from these
other reviews.
Mr Savidge
287. As you said just a moment ago, these
are early days and one appreciates that, but I think it would
be difficult not to agree with your judgment that just two meetings
is rather few to have had in these first few months. I wondered
if you would like to give us your idea of the optimum number for
the frequency of meetings of the Green Ministers' Committee?
(Ms Reynolds) This is a shot in the dark of course,
but I would have thought that quarterly meetings with a clear
minuted agenda and follow-up processes would actually be a very
good step forward. We have been sorry that there is no public
exposition of the discussion in the Ministers' meetings and whereas
we now get a short report of what they have discussed, minutes
or some kind of action programme would be much more useful, and
I think quarterly meetings with a very clear follow-through and
one that is publicly accountable would really make a difference
to the sense of commitment and speed with which this agenda is
going forward.
Mr Dafis
288. I was just wondering, when talking
about the Comprehensive Spending Review, whether you would regard
the level of government defence expenditure as an issue of sustainable
development. When I suggested to Mr Spellar that this was so and
that moving towards sustainable development might imply a shift
of resources away from what is currently regarded as defence to
a new definition of security and improved or enhanced government
expenditure on other matters, he was rather startled by that suggestion.
Would you not regard that as a classic cross-departmental issue
really and something that ought to be addressed either through
the Green Ministers' Committee process or in Cabinet Committee,
but certainly on a cross-departmental basis?
(Ms Reynolds) The actual level of defence expenditure
is not one that CPRE has commented on in the past but the point
you are making is one that we have a lot of sympathy with in the
sense that it is precisely the role of the Comprehensive Spending
Review and, we would argue, with the commitment to put the environment
at the heart of policy making that should trigger this really
fundamental debate about the role of spending in each Government
Department. We were slightly disappointed with, and in our supplementary
evidence we have quoted, the Defence Department reply to a parliamentary
question where it is pretty clear that they are going to consider
the environment when they have sorted everything else out. That
in a sense is our classic complaint, that when all the big decisions
are made, then they will have a look at the environmental implications
of what they have got left. This is true of other Government Departments,
not just Defence. We have been through years and years of argument
about, for example, Defence use of training lands and the whole
environmental impact of the use of land in the countryside and
each time we are told, "Yes, of course we will consider that,
but when we have decided whether the troops are in this country
or in Germany or somewhere else", not at the point when the
really important decisions are taken. As Paul Hamblin was saying
earlier, it is right at the outset that you should have those
debates.
289. Would you regard the level of defence
expenditure as a sustainable development issue?
(Ms Reynolds) Yes, I would. What I would not be
able to comment on is what changes would need to be made. It is
certainly one of the issues that Sustainable Development Strategy
I hope will tackle.
290. As regards the question of what the
appropriate level of defence expenditure ought to be within a
shift towards sustainable development, how do you think that should
be addressed in Government structures?
(Ms Reynolds) Through two processes: one, through
the Sustainable Development Strategy process, which is just beginning
in Government,—as I said earlier, we do not feel it yet
carries the authority of every Government Department's commitment
to it—and secondly, through the Comprehensive Spending Review
which is obviously going on now, and again there is too little
transparency about those processes.
Joan Walley
291. I wanted to come in on the issue of
the Comprehensive Spending Review. It seems to me that if we are
going to close the divide between the rhetoric and how we can
actually have sustainable development at the heart of Government,
it is going to be through the Comprehensive Spending Review in
each Department. Yes, we questioned the Ministry of Defence about
this issue and other Departments, but, given that the Comprehensive
Spending Review is already well under way, to what extent can
the failure to put sustainable development at the very start of
that process now at this stage be incorporated in it so that when
we do get those statements about what the future funding levels
and so on will be, they can actually reflect this issue of sustainability?
I am keen to get your very detailed points on each Department
as to how that could be done.
(Ms Reynolds) We pointed out to the Environment
Minister at a very early stage that only the DETR's Comprehensive
Spending Review statement specifically refers to sustainable development.
The other Government Department statements did not and apparently
very quickly there was a little note sent round Whitehall to say,
"Sustainable development: environment at the heart of policy
making", and so on. In a sense that is symptomatic of what
I was saying earlier, that the environment has not yet penetrated
into the central thinking and therefore in lots of cases the Comprehensive
Spending Review is going on with different levels of attention
to sustainable development.
292. In terms of the recommendation that
you have made to the Committee that we should ask the Deputy Prime
Minister to require sustainability to be in the final outcomes
of each review for each Department, is that something which there
is still time to do, or do you think that we have already missed
the boat?
(Ms Reynolds) I think you never miss the boat.
The process is a constant one and whenever the Government is looking
at expenditure programmes, which will go on annually even following
this initial Comprehensive Spending Review, there is always a
chance to do better than before. We are eternal optimists in that
sense, in believing that you can always push the process further.
The difficulty is that it is quite unlikely I think that there
will be a big announcement: "This is the end of the Comprehensive
Spending Review and this is what we have done for sustainability"
or other issues, and if you could encourage that, that would be
very helpful because what I think is more likely is that bits
of the outcomes will be dripped out one by one. We are already
seeing this in the DETR, in the changes to the countryside agencies.
We have already had one little snippet of what will happen. There
will not necessarily be, as I understand it, one grand announcement.
In that sense it is why we are looking to the Sustainable Development
Strategy to capture these arguments and if that could spell out
the Comprehensive Spending Review outcome for each Department,
that would certainly be a step forward and I would certainly say
it is not too late to ask for that.
Chairman
293. Are you saying that after the Comprehensive
Spending Review had started a note was subsequently sent round
more or less saying, "Please do not forget about sustainable
development"?
(Ms Reynolds) As I understand it, yes. I cannot
give you chapter and verse on that.
294. Have you got evidence of that?
(Ms Reynolds) All that we know is that when we
raised it with the Environment Minister it was pretty clear that
there was a slight sense of anxiety that not all other Government
Departments had the same words on the top of their Comprehensive
Spending Review statements and we do understand there was some
form of communication.
295. They tended to standardise the approach
as it were?
(Ms Reynolds) Yes.
(Mr Hamblin) If I may make a point that goes back
to earlier discussions about the complementarity of different
greening of Government mechanisms. Although we are not going to
get a single CSR document coming out of different Departments,
there are going to be aspects of it which will be going to the
Cabinet Committee. It appears, certainly, that there is a lack
of policing of the greening Government mechanisms. If papers go
to the Cabinet and they have financial implications then the Treasury
needs to be consulted and the paper will not be accepted unless
comments from the Treasury are included. There is the opportunity,
one could argue, for a similar approach to be adopted for the
environment.
Mr Loughton
296. Could I move slightly out of central
Government to the regions and the clause in your submission on
RDAs which is obviously going to become increasingly important,
and just get some further comments from you as to how you envisage
their role in the longer term. We had, in the DETR report, the
wonderful phrase that they will be able to promote sustainable
development "where appropriate". We have heard similar
get-out clauses like this. We heard from the Defence Minister
in their review that they would promote environmental goodies
unless it affected security issues, which seems to be absolutely
everything right down to liquid petroleum gas fired vehicles,
it seems. I share your concern that it is a bit of a sop. Do you
see RDAs as the foot soldiers for taking a more hands-on environmental
approach to Government out into the regions? Do you see its role
beyond just the planning role because I think we are all learning
what RDAs are actually going to be responsible for? The one thing
that does keep coming out is that they will have some planning
authority. Coming from Sussex, where we have had problems with
central Government over planning for West Sussex and our own local
plan being ripped up by the Deputy Prime Minister, do you envisage
that the RDAs for our region will take on the role for seeing
what is sustainable or not for any particular part of that region?
How are RDAs going to work if the principle is to compete against
other regions? Will they be competing against other regions to
see which is the most environmentally friendly region in terms
of pollution control and falling pollution levels, and how does
one do that from a regional point of view given that one would
need environmental taxes centrally to encourage less use of petrol
or whatever it may be, unless one is going to give a much greater
taxation profile to RDAs than is currently being envisaged? Do
you envisage that in the long term? Do they need more powers,
or is it going to work that in fact handing over powers to yet
another tier of Government will dilute their effectiveness by
simply getting it all lost in bureaucracy at a regional level
rather than a central level?
(Ms Reynolds) These are all very pertinent questions
and indeed some of them are being thrashed out as the Bill goes
through Parliament at the moment. We feel very strongly that the
RDAs' relationship with the regional conferences of local authorities
is a pivotal one. We do not support passing planning powers to
the Regional Development Agencies and we were glad when Dick Caborn
withdrew those clauses just before the recess because there was
a serious ambiguity created by the inclusion of those clauses
that the RDAs would take away planning powers from the democratically
elected local authorities which we do not think would be appropriate.
But there is going to be a tension, because the RDAs appear to
be conceived as bodies which will try to promote economic development
primarily and that is going to be in conflict I am sure with the
goal of sustainable development in some circumstances. In a sense,
to put it in a nutshell, the issue for us is whether in the interests
of promoting economic development you get lots more crinkly tin
sheds on the bypass and massive migration out of urban areas on
to nice greenfield sites, whether for housing or warehouse development
or out of town shopping centres still or other forms of out of
town development, in the interests of economic development, even
if the local authorities are saying very clearly, "Our regional
planning guidance is committed to sustainable development and
urban regeneration and countryside protection" and all those
things that we have been arguing for. There will be a tension
between those goals and the reason that we are so concerned is
that the clause in the Bill still says "to contribute to
the achievement of sustainable development in the United Kingdom
where it is relevant in this area to do so". This is a let-out
and is a problem, so we are still very keen that sustainable development
is the over-arching goal of the RDAs because only in those circumstances
do we feel those tensions can be reconciled at the outset, which
is where they need to be. We are still not happy with this tension
which we feel is almost inevitably going to be created.
297. Is that achievable without giving greater
taxation powers to some form of regional or Government office?
(Ms Reynolds) I do not at the moment foresee taxation
powers being taken away from central Government. I do not think
we see any sign of that. The Budget statement was perhaps the
only published environmental appraisal we have seen, looking at
the use of taxation measures of different kinds in the transport
sector, though not yet as we would like to see it in the housing
sector. At the moment those are still very much envisaged to be
dealt with nationally. I think the RDAs' function needs to be
to promote both in the countryside and in the towns sustainable
development, not just through planning but through appropriate
investment and support for activities which will pursue this goal
and it is still unclear to us that that circle can be squared.
Mr Grieve
298. The question I was going to ask you
immediately homed in on in a reply to the last question, which
was that the role of the RDAs potentially could be extremely destructive
in terms of merely being agents for promoting development without
any regard for the environmental cost. How do you see there being
adequate mechanisms to control that? You have touched on one or
two in your earlier answer, but is it likely that local government
is going to be an adequate shield through its planning system
and, if it is not, what would you wish to see?
(Ms Reynolds) First of all we would like to see
regional planning guidance as the vehicle by which the decisions
that the RDAs make about investment and support for particular
activities are channelled so that the vision for the region created
by the local authorities and articulated through regional planning
guidance is a shared vision. What we do not want to see is a competing
vision with the regional planning guidance over here and some
kind of regional economic strategy prepared by the RDAs over there
and the two not matching. That seems to us to be a crucial point
and if we can get the decisions funnelled through the RPG process
that would help enormously because that does set out the vision
for both rural areas and urban areas and should guide investment
decisions. We should also talk about the transfer of some of the
greening of Government mechanisms down to regional level and there
are all kinds of opportunities to do the same sorts of things
at regional level as we have been talking about nationally: better
communication, articulation of environmental goals, the use of
environmental appraisal and strategic environmental assessment.
All of this should be happening at the regional level and indeed,
with responsibility being passed to the regions for things like
transport policy, housing policy and other crucial issues, then
they will need to use these mechanisms to avoid running into conflict.
Joan Walley
299. On that whole issue about Regional
Development Agencies, clearly it is important that rather than
have an end-of-pipe solution to try and sort things out at a later
stage, we should have it right at the very beginning. It is generally
known that I was concerned about a particular clause that you
have just read out in the legislation. Do you think this Committee
could fulfil some kind of role (and, if so, how) in making sure
for example that where there were genuine environmental concerns
about legislation coming through the House, as in the case of
that particular Bill, we could if you like have preliminary discussions
on the whole issue of taking a precautionary approach at the appropriate
stage in the formulation of legislation so that we are not always
fire-fighting after the event and trying to change things but
actually trying to get things done at the very beginning? What
do you think this Committee should be recommending in order to
prevent a similar situation arising with future legislation?
(Ms Reynolds) I go back to the point that Paul
made about the kinds of accompanying documents that go to Cabinet
Committees and to the decision makers. This should apply to new
policies in the case of Cabinet decisions when they need an accompanying
Environmental Statement, as Paul Hamblin was talking about, and
in the case of Bills you might ask as one of the routine requirements
of your existence that you see all Bills in draft form and that
there should be an accompanying environmental statement and that
you have a chance to comment on it. I certainly think in the future
that is something that would be a very appropriate role for your
Committee. My guess is that you would pick up on this sort of
thing in two minutes flat.
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